The Magic Art Among The Celts, part 2
s in the case of Greek tradition, we find the draught of
forgetfulness or healing a prominent feature of Celtic sorcery. Finn, or Fionn, leader of the Fenians,
better known in legend as Finn MacCoul,
possessed this virtue—that a drink given from his cupped hands would heal any
wound or cure any disease. When his wife Grainne
eloped with Diarmid, and that hero
was wounded almost to death by the boar
of Ben Gulban, he begged Finn to save him, "for when thou didst get
the noble precious gift of divining at the Boinn, it was given thee that to
whomsoever thou shouldst give a drink from the palms of thy hands, he should
after that be young and sound from every sickness". But Finn, almost
insane with jealousy, tarried so long in bearing the healing draught to his foe
that when at last he approached with the life-giving water he found the Celtic Adonis beyond his aid.
hen Cuchullin, grieving for the
beauteous Fand, the wife of the
sea-god Manannan, felt no longer the
urge to live, the Druids gave him a draught of forgetfulness, so that her
memory troubled his mind no more. Another version of the legend tells how
Manannan shook his mantle of oblivion between the lovers. In the Scottish
Gaelic story of The Daughter of King Underwaves, already
alluded to, "a little man" tells Diarmid, the hero, that if he
proceeds to a magic well he will there find a draught
which will have the property of freeing him from his infatuation for the
supernatural woman who has so greatly disturbed his life. He must put this
water into a certain cup which possesses arcane virtues, dropping into it at
the same time "a gulp of blood". When she drinks it he must refill
the vessel and after quaffing it a second time she will be free of an ailment
which torments her, while Diarmid, on his part, will lose his affection for
her. All this he accomplishes, and accordingly frees himself from her spells.
he magic wand wielded by the Druid magicians is a constant factor in Celtic
tale. It’s told that the Druid's staff was generally made from the wood of the
yew tree. In the story of Diarmid and Grainne we are informed that Reachtaire, a sorcerer, struck his son
with a magic wand, thus transforming him into "a cropped pig having
neither ears nor tail". Ulan, a
comrade of Finn, had a fairy sweetheart who was jealous of his wife. She struck
her rival with a Druidic wand, turning her into the most beautiful wolf-hound
which eyes ever beheld. In this condition she became the mother of the two
world-famous hounds, Brann and Sceoluing, but was later restored to
human form upon her husband's promising lifelong fidelity to the fairy. The children of Lir
were changed by strokes from a magic wand into four swans that flew over Loch
Dearg for three hundred years, until released by St. Caemhoc.
he Druidic wand plays an important part, a blow from it causing transformation
and spells . It must be remarked, too, that the wood used for wands and Druidic
rites and fires was not the oak, as in Gaul: sacred wood among the Irish Druids
would appear to have been the yew, hawthorn, and more especially the rowan
tree. There is an allusion to a magic wand in Welsh tradition.
In a song ascribed to the ancient British bard Taliesin, which is to be found in the collection known as The
Myvyrian Archaiology , mention is made of "the magic wand of Mathonwy, which grows in the wood, with
more exuberant fruit, on the bank of the river of spectres". Mathonwy was
one of the rulers of the British Underworld and thus a master of Magic by
native right, though in the Mabinogion his son Math is styled Prince of Gwynedd in North Wales. But Math's magic wand had one
association with Welsh myth, for in the tale in the Mabinogion which
bears his name he employs it as a means of divination to discover whether the
lady Arianrhod was a virgin or
otherwise. The lady protested, doubtless as many another had done before her,
that she was; but Math insisted that she should step over his wand, whereupon
she left a child upon the floor, the famous Llew
Llaw Gyffes. As she made her way, full of confusion, to the door, another
child made its appearance. This was Dylan,
who was later to become a marine deity. In Yorkshire they still say that
"if a girl strides over a broom-handle she will be a mother before she is
a wife", and it seems not improbable that the proverb may be a
recollection of some such belief as we find in the above story that the chastity
of a maid could be tested by stepping over a magic wand. The broomstick is an
obvious symbol such as would exactly fit the purposes of mimetic magic, and is
there not a saying in some northern English shire that if an unmarried woman
has a child, "She has jumped o'er the besom"?
ut it was not by aid of a wand, but rather with a javelin,
that a Druid brought about the cessation of a magical drouth. A certain rebel
chief conspired with another Druid in plaguing the King of Munster and his folk
of the Irish south-west. One of the most harmful enchantments the magician
inflicted upon this community was a spell by means of which all the water in
the country was dried up. Man and beast perished and the crops began to wither,
when the King succeeded in discovering a Druid of greater magical capacity than
the former, who, by the expedient of casting his spear into the soil, opened up
a bubbling spring at the spot where the weapon had fallen.
he raising of magical obstacles to hinder or check pursuit by an enemy was
certainly a Druidic art. One of the best illustrations of it is to be found in
the Scottish tale of The Son of the King of Eirin. This young
prince vowed that he would never marry a woman whose hair was not as black as
the raven's wing and whose cheek as red as its blood—a vow which seems to have
been common among the Celtic aristocracy. He discovered such a maiden in the
daughter of the King of the Great World,
and promptly eloped with her. Her father pursued them, but the girl proved to
be a sorceress of considerable resource, for she raised a forest in his path by
means of working magic upon a piece of thorn, so that the pair succeeded in
eluding pursuit. In another tale of similar character the
heroine escapes from a giant by plucking a hair out of her head and
transforming it into a bridge by means of which she crosses a river. In the Morayshire tale of Nicht Nought Naething, a
giant's daughter with whom the hero has eloped, espying her father hot on their
trail, takes a comb from her hair and casts it behind her. "From every one
of its prongs there grew up a fine thick briar in the way of the giant."
She contrives other obstacles successively with her hair-dagger, which sprouts
into a chevaux de frise, and with a magic flask, the contents
of which swell into a vast wave, which drowns the giant, "so that he was
dead and dead indeed"!
n the occult lore of old Ireland we learn of the existence of a
marvellous silverbranch or bough, by virtue of which the gods lured favoured mortals
to their joyous country. In some accounts of Celtic magical arts this important
arcane device is frequently ignored or only partially described, and as it was
the especial property of the god Manannan, who is so intimately associated with
Druidic art, it appears essential to make good this deficiency and to provide a
reasonably full description of it in these pages. This bough was, in effect, a
link with the unseen world, a talisman by the aid of which certain mortals with
whom the gods desired to establish communion and fellowship were enabled to
make entrance into the overseas paradise of these divinities while yet alive.
This bough, or branch, was cut from a mystical apple tree and gave forth a
magical music which none might resist. The apples which it bore served the
pilgrim for meat and drink while in the Land of the Gods and during the whole
period of his sojourn therein. The tree from which it had been cut grew at the
door of the Court in Magh Mell,
"The Plain of Honey".
A silver tree upon
which the sun shines,
Like unto gold in its splendid lustre,
so it is described in the incident known as "The
Sick-bed of Cuchullin". Perhaps the most illuminating of the tales
concerning it is that which recounts the manner in which Cormac MacAirt, the High King
of Ireland, was lured to the Paradise of the gods by its agency. As Cormac
was walking in the plain adjacent to his palace he observed a young man who
held in his hand a wonderful branch which had nine golden apples depending from
it. When the youth shook this branch, the apples, beating against each other,
made sweet and mystic music, so that he who heard it straightway forgot his
sorrow and care. It had also the property of lulling folk into a magical
oblivion. Cormac asked the young man if he would sell the branch, and to his
dismay the youth demanded his wife, son and daughter in exchange for the
bauble. The King, temporarily deranged by the music it gave forth, agreed to
the bargain. At first his wife and children naturally expressed themselves as
horrified by his rashness, but after Cormac had shaken the silver branch and
compelled it to discourse music, they at once forgot their dismay at the manner
in which he had disposed of them and departed with the young man joyfully
enough. But after a year had passed, Cormac longed to see his wife and
children once more, and set out to find them. A magic cloud enveloped him and
soon he found himself in a wonderful plain, where he entered a fine house, in
which he encountered a supernatural pair whom he knew by certain tokens to be
Manannan, the god of the sea, and his wife. After some delay Cormac's wife, son
and daughter entered the hall, and Manannan admitted that it was he who had
taken them away from Cormac, as it had been his main intention to lure him to
his happy country by this means. Cormac and his wife and family slept that
night in the house of Manannan, and when they awoke in the morning it was to
find themselves in their palace at Tara, with the silver branch and other
magical articles beside them. The magical properties
of this branch were also brought to bear upon Bran, the son of Febal,
who was likewise decoyed through its agency to the country of the gods, where
he sojourned in an island solely inhabited by women.
he magical stone of the kings of
Ireland which was situated at Tara,
and which recognized the true High King of that island by emitting a loud
shriek when he stood upon it, has also Druidic associations. It is identified
by knowledgeable writers with the Lia Fail, and is indeed the
original Lia Fail, as I hope to make plain in my remarks upon it in
another chapter. One of the earliest tales concerning it tells how King Conn of the Hundred Battles repaired one
morning at sunrise to the battlements of the Ri Raith, or royal fortress at Tara, accompanied by his three
Druids, Mael, Bloc and Bluicné and
his three bards Ethain, Corb and Cesare,
for the purpose of watching the firmament, so that no hostile being from the
air might suddenly descend upon Erin unknown to him. While perambulating the
battlements, Conn chanced to tread on a stone, which immediately shrieked under
his feet so loudly as to be heard all over Tara, and throughout all East Meath.
He asked his Druids to explain the omen to him, and so profound was its
significance that they required fifty-three days to arrive at a decision
respecting the phenomenon. At length they told him that the name of the stone
was Fal and that it hailed from Inis Fal, or the island of Fal. "It
has shrieked under your royal feet," they said, "and the number of shrieks
it has given forth is the number of kings that will succeed
you." Later, a supernatural being, no other
than the god Lugh, led Conn away to
his residence to inform him of the length of his reign and the names and
fortunes of his successors.
his stone, the Lia Fail, was one of the four
precious things brought to Ireland by the Tuatha
Dé Danann. Rhys associates it with the property of light, and this he
refers to its connection with a sun-god "in his earlier identification
with the sun. In other words, it was a fetish connected with his worship".
He further identifies the stone with the worship of Nuada, the principal Gaelic sun-god, and thinks that Tara was his
high-place. The recognition of Conn by the stone was the last instance of its
functioning as an oracle, as, at the birth of Christ, its "heart"
sprang out of it as far as the village of Tailltenn, where it was known as
"Fal's Heart". Now
Tailltenn and its sun-festival were associated with the god Lugh, and this
would seem to imply "nothing less than the eclipsing of the older god's
glory by that of the younger", that is that Lugh superseded Nuada.
ow some attention to a passage in British magical
narrative which raises certain problems in connection with the personal
identity of the Druid Merlin, some of
which it will be more appropriate to deal with at a later stage when
considering the arcane position of that important figure. In this place I shall
follow the account as it is to be found in the seventeenth chapter of the Sixth Book of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Histories of the British Kings. The
British ruler, Vortigern, dismayed at
the result of his unworthy conspiracy with the invading Saxons, through which
the nobility of Britain had been decimated at Stonehenge, consulted his Magi (in all likelihood the Druids are
intended here) as to his personal safety. They advised him to build as a refuge
a tower of exceeding strength on Mount Eryri, or Snowdon. He assembled a large
number of masons at the spot and the work was duly proceeded with. But the
building of the stronghold was nightly interrupted by some occult force, the
foundations being swallowed up by the soil so that no man knew what had caused
such an upheaval. The King's soothsayers arrived at the conclusion that only by
seeking out a fatherless boy, slaying him and sprinkling his blood over the
foundation stones could the building of the tower be carried on—a memory of the
ancient belief that by an act of human sacrifice alone could the powers who
disturbed the soil be placated. After a long search they succeeded in
discovering such a lad, whose mother was a daughter of the King of Demetia and a nun.
aising the dead, or bringing them back to life, appears to have been included
among the principles of Celtic Magic. We have already seen that the Tuatha Dé
Danann were able to resuscitate those Athenians slain in battle with the
Syrians by sending spirits into their dead bodies. When Bran, the great British god-enchanter, invaded Ireland for the
purpose of liberating his sister Branwen
from the tyranny of her Irish husband King Matholwch,
he found that a magic cauldron which he had given to his brother-in-law was
being made use of to restore to life those Irish warriors who had been slain in
the course of the combat betwixt the Britons and the Hibernians. But his crafty
brother Evnissyen disguised himself
as an Irish champion and lay on the ground as though dead. He was duly placed
by the Irish in the cauldron, when he stretched himself spasmodically, and with
one mighty effort burst both the magic vessel and his own heart. We also learn that the British gods Manawyddan and Pryderi, rulers of the Underworld, had among their
treasures the Three Birds of Rhiannon,
which could sing the dead to life and the living to death.
mong the gods of the Celts we find the practice of Magic continually
recurring. The British god Math,
brother to that mysterious Don, on
whom the entire British Pantheon of light looked as a mother, was regarded as a
ruler of the Underworld, although he appears to have lacked any of the usual
affrighting characteristics, of plutonic deities. In the Mabinogion he
is represented as a magician par excellence, and as passing on
his arcane gifts to his nephew Gwydion,
who, through the knowledge thus attained, became the "Druid" of the
gods, the master of illusion and phantasy, and the instructor of mankind in all
the useful arts of life. In the same way the Irish
hero Cuchullin was instructed by Cathbad
the Druid, who had, he said, "made him a master of inquiry in the arts of
the god of Druidism or magic and rendered him skilled in all that was excellent
in visions''. Here we should particularly remark the term "dé
druidechta", which means in Gaelic "of the god of
Druidism". This phrase, doubtless meant the divinity with whom the Druids
had to do, and with whose aid they practised their magical arts. We are not,
unfortunately, told the name of the god; but it is natural to suppose that it
was the chief of the Goidelic pantheon, and this is practically settled by the
kind of miracles which the Druids are usually represented as able to perform
with most success in their competition with the early saints engaged in the
task of Christianizing Ireland. These miracles may be described as mostly
atmospheric, consisting of such feats as bringing on a heavy snow, palpable
darkness or a great storm. Rhys equates the British god Math with the Goidelic "god of Druidism"
alluded to above, who was probably Nuada. Math was able to hear without
difficulty "every sound of speech that reached the air", he was
utterly righteous and just in his dealings with gods and men, he was the great
diviner, teacher, and master of omens.
s we have seen, Gwydion appears to have succeeded Math as "druid of the
gods". Gwydion wed with his sister Arianrhod, who disowned the only
surviving son of the union, the great British sun-god, Llew Llaw Gyffes,
"the Long-handed one of Light", and refused to give him a name. Llew
was also gifted with Magic. But the chief arcane triumph of the British
gods was certainly the creation of the famous damsel Blodeuwedd, or "Flower-face", whom Math and Gwydion made
out of flowers, the blossoms of broom, of oak, and meadowsweet, the most
exquisite creature whom mankind had yet beheld. She was given to Llew as his
wife. But she betrayed her too trusting husband, and the manner in which she
did so has become, more by reason of its obscurity than anything else, one of
the most famous passages in British arcane literature.
he story of Blodeuwedd is to be found in the mabinogi, or
tale, of Math, Son of Mathonwy. The faithless flower-maiden
fell in love with Gronwy Pevr, Lord of
Penllyn, and the pair resolved to rid themselves of Llew. Blodeuwedd
beguiled her husband into a revelation of the one and only way in which he
might be despatched. The spear which alone could slay him must be a year in the
making and could be made only on Sundays, during the time when Mass was being
celebrated. Llew could not be killed either in a house or in the open, nor on
horseback, nor afoot. Being of the seed divine, his life had been most
carefully environed with magical prohibitions and safeguards. But, he confided
to his wife, these difficulties might be overcome "by making me a bath on
the bank of a river, and making a round roof above the vat, and thatching it
well and snugly after that, and bringing a he-goat and placing it beside the
vat, and by placing one foot on the back of the he-goat and the other on the
edge of the vat". Whoever should smite him with a spear prepared in
accordance with the above instructions and while he was in such a position
would compass his death.
t is plain that here we are confronted by an example of that simple cunning
which, appears to have been associated with early Magic. The gods might, by
their divine powers, decree the safety of a great hero or demi-god, yet it was
possible for any crafty little nonentity to overthrow and bring to naught all
their designs by the exercise of low cunning, and, by some tricky device,
worthy of the "Philadelphia lawyer" of tradition, to overreach them
and cause the ruin of their most illustrious favourites. Gronwy, advised by the
treacherous Blodeuwedd, set about making the fatal weapon which was to take the
life of her husband, and when the time was ripe she caused him to take up a position
of vantage under the lee of a hill. She then begged Llew to give her a
practical demonstration of the lethal position which he had described to her.
In answer to her request he betook himself to a bath which she had built to his
" specifications", thus displaying less of divine acumen than most
mortals would have credited him with. All the accessories had been carefully
prepared. Llew bathed, reassumed his nether garments, and placed one of his
feet on the edge of the bath, the other on the back of the goat. Gronwy,
espying his opportunity, cast the fatal spear. But Llew, instead of falling
dead, was changed into an eagle and flew away with discordant cries.
is uncle Gwydion at once went in search of him and at last discovered him in
what seems to have been an advanced state of decomposition. Gwydion struck the
eagle with his magic wand, so that he reassumed human shape, but the hapless
Llew had lost flesh and was now nothing but skin and bone. With the assistance
of the best physicians in the country he regained his health within a year's
time. Gwydion transformed Blodeuwedd into an owl, while Llew compelled Gronwy
to assume the same position at the bath which had been so nearly fatal to
himself, and while he was in that attitude, slew him.
he combats between the British gods of light and darkness are
fulfilled of magical incidents. The hounds of Manawyddan and Pryderi, we are
told, one day roused a white boar which took refuge in a magic castle, and was
followed by the pack. The gods entered the castle, but signs of neither boar
nor hounds could they perceive. In the courtyard stood an exquisite fountain,
to which was attached a rich golden bowl. Pryderi raised the bowl to examine
it, whereupon his hands cleaved to it so that it was impossible to disengage
them. Manawyddan returned to his wife Rhiannon,
who accompanied him to the castle, where she did her utmost to free Pryderi
from his embarrassing position. But despite her efforts her hands also adhered
to the bowl, and with a clap of thunder the castle vanished, along with the two
captives.
ater Manawyddan found that the wheat growing upon his lands was
disappearing, ear by ear. Convinced that the same enemy who had carried off
Pryderi and Rhiannon was the author of this fresh outrage, he kept watch over
the grain. At midnight he heard a great tumult, and beheld a host of mice
biting off the ears of grain. He succeeded in catching one, decided to hang the
animal, and had just made a small gallows for the purpose, when a man dressed
like a travelling scholar accosted him and asked what he was about to do. On
being informed of his intention, the stranger offered Manawyddan money to
liberate the mouse, but this was refused. Still other men addressed him in the
field, offering him considerable bribes to free the creature, but to the last
of these, who was habited like a bishop, he declared that the only price he
would entertain for the animal's life was that Pryderi and Rhiannon should be set
at liberty, for naturally his suspicions had been aroused by his visitors'
manifest anxieties as to the fate of the mouse. The "Bishop" turned
out to be Llwyd, a magician, and the
mouse his wife, whom, with his servitors, he had transformed for the purpose of
stripping Manawyddan of his harvest to wipe off an ancient grudge he had
against the god. Rhiannon and Pryderi were at once transported to the spot, the
fields resumed their prosperous appearance, and the mouse returned to human
shape. All of which we learn from the mabinogi of Manawyddan
the Son of Llyr.
he Irish saga of The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn teems
with magical incidents. Lugh, the sun-god, had slain certain Fomorians who oppressed his people as
tax-gatherers, and in revenge his father Cian
was slain by the sons of Tuirenn—Brian, Luchar
and Lucharba. In vain did Cian assume the form of a pig, for the brethren
penetrated his disguise and killed him. Lugh, to punish them for the crime,
extorted from them the heaviest fine he could think of—that they must filch and
present him with three apples from the Garden of the Hesperides; the skin of a
pig belonging to King Tuis of Greece,
the touch of which cured wounded persons; the spear of Pisear, King of Persia; the horses and chariot of Dobhar, King of Sicily; the seven pigs
of Easal, King of the Golden Pillars;
the hound-whelp of the King of Loruaidhe,
which could catch a wild beast on seeing it; and the cooking-spit of the women
of the isle of Fianchuive, which lay
at the bottom of the sea between Scotland and Ireland. It was also ordained
that they must give three shouts on the hill of Choc Miodhchaoin, in the land of Lochlann, a most dangerous proceeding when the character of its
inhabitants fell to be considered. These seven objects, animals and
performances appear to have constituted something in the nature of the seven
wonders of the world according to Celtic tradition, and all of them have
doublets in Celtic lore. The apples are found in Celtic stories of the Overseas
paradise, the lance approximates to that of the god Lugh, the hound resembles
Brann, the famous dog of Finn, the pigs are similar to those of Manannan and
the British god Arawn, the horses
equate with the steeds of Manannan, and the cooking-spit is reminiscent of that
made by the god-smith Gobniu.
he adventures of the trio are much too long and complicated even to summarize,
but in the course of them the brethren transform themselves into divers birds
and animals, wage many combats, descend into the depths of the ocean, and at
last succeed in achieving all but one of the labours set them. But before they
had time to give the three shouts on the hill of Miodhchaoin, Lugh wove a
Druidical spell round them so that they utterly forgot this part of their task
and sailed back to Ireland, whereupon the cunning god challenged them with the
omission. At the hill in question they were so sorely wounded that they had
much ado to return to Eire, where they gradually succumbed to their injuries.
et us consider briefly some other magical weapons as they
are described in Celtic lore. The magical spear is usually manufactured by a
certain smith and for a certain purpose. The Celtic smith is almost invariably
an arcane figure with uncanny associations, a wizard capable of making supernatural
weapons, an idea that may have descended from the Bronze or Iron Ages when
metals were novel elements and appeared to possess supernatural attributes of
sharpness and life-taking quality. It is a smith who prepares the spear which
takes the life of Balor, the Fomorian
cyclops-god with one eye, into which Lugh, his grandson, plunges the weapon in
revenge for the slaying of his sire, MacKineely.
That smith is the Irish god Gobniu, and brother to MacKineely. Llew, as we have
seen, was discomfited in great measure by the casting of a magic spear from the
hand of his wife's paramour Gronwy. This spear was wrought on Sundays only,
during the time of Mass, and it was essential that its making should occupy an
entire year. Thus it seems to have some arcane association with time,
astrological or otherwise. That the atmosphere was full of spirits associated
with the luminaries of heaven who were at particular seasons of the year
supposed to strike down mortals with darts or arrows which communicated
diseases such as epilepsy is a very ancient superstition, common to many
countries so far apart as Britain and ancient Mexico, and the magic spear may
indeed have been a confused reminiscence of this belief.
he Irish sun-god Lugh was also the possessor of a magical spear which seems to
have symbolized a ray of the sun. It was gifted with an individual life of its
own and was so thirsty for blood that it could be kept from slaying only by
steeping its head in an infusion of poppy leaves which acted as a narcotic upon
it. On the day of battle it was taken out of this brew, when it called out
mightily, lashing itself into a frenzy and emitting flashes of fire. When
freed, it launched itself against the ranks of the enemy in a tireless orgy of
slaughter.
e also encounter numerous references to magical swords in Celtic romance. The
Irish sea-god Manannan had three such weapons, The Retaliator, The Great
Fury, and The Little Fury. His
compatriot divinity, Nuada "of the Silver Hand", possessed that
particular blade which is associated with the traditions of the Tuatha Dé
Danann. Finn MacCoul was the owner of a notable sword, the Macan Luin, which had been made especially for him by his
grandfather. It was of so fine an edge that a second blow with it was needless.
It had been tempered in the blood of "a living thing", to wit that of
a hound. It is scarcely necessary to mention Excalibur, the sword of Arthur, in a catalogue of Celtic magical
weapons, nor does its fame require that one should do so.
rom time immemorial the Celtic peoples
have retained the custom at religious and other ceremonies of walking in
procession right-handwise, that is "with the sun", or keeping to the
right in a circular motion. That this custom proceeds from an ancient cult of
sun-worship is scarcely questionable. In Irish and Scottish Gaelic this motion
is known as deiseal that is "right-handwise", and is
regarded as propitious because in harmony with the movement of the sun. Its
opposite, tuathal , or circling to the left, is considered
ominous, and is known in England and Lowland Scotland as "widdershins, or
"withershins", derived from the Anglo-Saxon "wither"
meaning "against" and "sith" or "sins", "to
walk". Toland says that the common people in the Western Isles of Scotland
in his day (the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries), invariably
walked round cairns when they had occasion to be in their neighbourhood, three
times, from east to west, Protestants as well as Catholics. "This
custom," he says, "was us'd three thousand years ago, and God knows
how long before, by their ancestors the ancient Gauls, of the same religion
with them, who turn'd round righthandwise when they worshipped their
gods." The people of Colonsay, before any
enterprise, passed "sunways around the church" and turned their boats
about in the same direction. Wedding processions in the Highlands and baptismal
parties frequently passed round the church in this direction, and herdsmen
danced three times sunways around the fire at the Bealltainn festivals. To proceed in the opposite way was almost invariably the habit
of the practitioners of the Black Art. A Scottish witch, Jonet Forsyth, who was refused corn by a neighbour, walked round a
stack "contrair to the sunis cours", with consequent injury to the
grain, as did many others of the sisterhood when thwarted.
nd know: One of the strangest figures in Celtic sorcery, one indeed whose
appearance in its records is fraught with a certain mystery. This was none
other than the celebrated Simon Magus,
the sorcerer alluded to in the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, who bewitched the people of Samaria and led
them to believe that he was possessed of divine power. St. Peter angrily repulsed him when he sought to purchase his
conversion with money. Later tradition averred that he betook himself to Rome,
where he once more came into collision with Peter, parading his magical power
by flying through the air in public. The apostle breathed a vehement prayer for
judgment upon him, whereupon the magician crashed to earth. Tradition adds that
he died from the effects of the fall. In Irish legend Simon Magus is said to have aided the Druid Mog Ruith in making his celebrated
wheel, the Roth Fail, which had the property of bearing the
Druid through the heavenly spaces. But, like the flying machine of the British
god Bladud, of whom we read in
Geoffrey of Monmouth's History, it met with an accident. Mog
Ruith's daughter Tlachtga conveyed
some of its fragments to Ireland, one of which she erected as the pillar-stone
of Cnamchoill, near Tipperary. In
Celtic tradition its conveyance to Eire was looked upon as a dire calamity, and
as fraught with extreme danger to the island's destinies. Rhys was of opinion
that the fierce denunciation of Christianity by the Irish Druids resulted in
the apostate Simon Magus becoming identified in a manner with the pagan Druidic
caste. Again, the word "Druid" was translated into Latin as Magus, or magician, and as it was so
frequently associated with Simon, the terms "Druid" and "Simon
Magus" appear to have become interchangeable. Indeed, Simon was familiarly
known in Ireland as "Simon the Druid".
ut the Roth Fail, "the wheel of light", was symbolic of the sun and as such came to be confused or identified, as in the story of Bladud, with a magic flying-machine which traversed the heavens, and therefore with the machine by which Simon is said to have aided his flights in Rome. The myth, on the whole, is similar to the Greek tale of Icarus, whose father Daedalus constructed a pair of wings by which the youth flew through the air. But the heat of the sun melted the wax which held them together, so that he fell to his death into the waters of the Ægean Sea.
t least one Roman author, Varro,
tells us that the Druids practised walking on fire at some of their annual
festivals. They walked slowly, he tells us, over a bed of burning coals, but he
adds that they were able to accomplish this by the aid of a certain ointment
with which they previously besmeared the soles of their feet. The practice, a
very ancient one, has an almost world-wide recurrence. The Gabha-Bheil, or
trial by Beli, a later Irish
ceremony, compelled a suspected person to pass three times with bare feet
through a fire as a proof of innocence, and at the Bealltainnfestival
young men leapt through the fire, doubtless a "memory" of human
sacrifice. Otherwise, I cannot find any justification for the statement of
Varro, although it appears to me not at all improbable.
n some Irish and Highland tales we find mention of magical cups possessing
occult properties. Thus in the West Highland story of Finn MacCoul and
the Bent Grey Lad the hero is dispatched in search of "the
quadrangular cup of the Fenians" which the King of Lochlann had filched from them. Any drink a man
desired might be had from it, in which quality it seems to resemble the Grail
vessel and the magic cup given by King Oberon
to Huon of Bordeaux. In the tale of Uistean we encounter a cup which had the
property of curing the dumb. Good fortune
accompanies the cup known as the Luck of
Edenhall, but if it ever be broken the luck fails. Peace and plenty are the
portion of the family which retains the cup
of Ballafletcher, in the Isle of Man, but serious consequences associated
with spiritual visitation would ensue did it meet with an accident.
he act of compassing the death of an enemy by means of magic wrought upon an
image or effigy in his likeness was known to and practised by the Celts both in
ancient and modern times. Boethius
(Hector Boece) alludes to a case of this description in his History of
Scotland in connection with a conspiracy said to have been directed
against the life of Duffus or Odo, one of the early Scottish kings,
who flourished towards the end of the tenth century. This monarch was seized
with a nameless distemper without any ostensible cause. He could not sleep and
wasted away because of painful and incessant sweatings. Certain sorceresses in
the town of Forres were suspected of a design to destroy him, and the
miscreants were at last discovered in the act of basting an image of the king
at a fire, reciting occult verses the while. When arrested, they confessed that
their art had been revealed to them by demons and that the leading men of the
province of Moray had employed them to slay the king by the means described.
The image was destroyed—a risky proceeding in the circumstances, as we shall
see—and the sorceresses expiated their guilt in the flames. Meanwhile the King recovered
the exercise of all his normal faculties, leading an army against the rebel
chiefs who had conspired against his life and punishing them as they deserved.
mages of this kind were, in the mediaeval period, usually made of wax, which
would readily melt at a flame, thus presumably causing a wasting of the flesh
in the hapless victim. But the specimens of such images—"pictures",
as the older witches weirdly described them—known to later times, were
generally modelled in clay, and were known in the Highlands as the corp
creidh,or the "clay body". This effigy was placed on a board
before a large and constantly replenished fire. Thorns, pins and needles were
pushed into the still yielding clay, "elf-arrows" or primitive flint
darts were cast at it to the accompaniment of dreadful oaths and imprecations,
and finally the image was broken in pieces, upon which the victim was thought
to yield up the ghost, blue flames issuing from his mouth! This
terrible instrument of Celtic vengeance, the invention of a sentiment
unrestrained in its ferocity in remoter ages, and perhaps at times even in our
own, has only of late been more generally discarded. Not so many years ago
a corp creidh was discovered in a Highland burn, where it had
been so disposes that the action of the water might wear it slowly away—the
inference being that the unfortunate person who had earned the hatred of its
maker might suffer the pangs of a lingering decline. Rhys, writing on the subject of such figures,
describes a corp creidh housed in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at
Oxford. It is made from clay and stuck full of pins and nails. The specimen in
question hails from a neighbourhood in Inverness-shire and is the gift of a
Major G--of that county. "It was intended for the Major", and was
discovered by workmen at his front door. A similar experience, Sir John
remarked, happened to a minister in the Highlands, who was observed to be
wasting away. His friends instituted a search, when a corp creidh was
discovered in a stream hard by his house. Within recent years, too, sheeps'
hearts stuck full of pins have been discovered in the chimneys of cottages in
the Highlands and in Wales, revealing a comparatively recent resort to a
practice intended to do mortal hurt to an enemy.
he minutiae of Magic are well illustrated by Celtic tale. In the West Highland
story of The Three Soldiers their three supernatural
sweethearts bestow upon them a towel or napkin, a magic whistle and a purse.
The first contains "every kind of meat" on each occasion it is
spread; the second, when blown, ensures that the blower will be in the midst of
his regiment; while the third will be found full of gold and silver every time
its strings are unloosed. The three articles are beguiled from the soldiers by
the stratagems of a king's daughter. But the napkin also possesses the property
of a magic carpet, resembling those known to Oriental tale, for when one of the
soldiers stands upon it in company with the Princess and wishes to be in
"the uttermost isle of the deep", the pair speedily find themselves
in such a locality. The Princess, once more placing herself upon the napkin,
wishes herself back in Dublin, while the soldier sleeps, and on awaking he
finds himself marooned on the island. He feels the pangs of hunger and
discovers two kinds of apples in an orchard. One variety causes horns to sprout
upon the eater's head, while the other as swiftly removes them. A vessel
conveniently passes the island and bears the soldier back to Dublin, where he
assumes the guise of a vendor of apples, and sells some of the harmful variety
to the Princess, who partakes of them, with the result that horns appear on her
head. Her hand in marriage is offered by the King her father to anyone who will
rid her of this deformity, and the soldier effects the cure by supplying her
with the antidote, but prefers to accept a large fee for his services rather
than risk matrimony with a lady of a disposition so equivocal.
here is indeed no end to the minor marvels of Magic in Celtic tale. The ears
of friendly horses and bulls are the repositories not only of food and drink,
but magical toys of the most fantastic description are also to be found there,
concealed in fruit—golden cocks that crow, diminutive women who sew and spin,
magic shears which function of themselves. And here I
may appropriately remark upon the bizarre character of Celtic story no less
than upon its delicate spirit of invention, which equals that of any body of
similar fiction and far surpasses all in its remote loveliness and quality of
elfin magic, repaying the imaginative reader a million fold. In its record,
indeed, the entire gamut of magical potency is expressed and in such a manner
as to make it clear that the incidents it details are not donations from alien
fiction or importations, but are rather descended from a common and greatly
ancient fabric of human tradition, which its inherent spirit of marvel and
craftsmanship has raised to a keener level of artistic performance.
peaking in a general sense, I may remark that only as regards a few essentials
do we discover in Celtic Magic any marked difference from that of other
European races. Most of the magical data I have already reviewed is familiar in
the records of nearly all European magical systems—the raising of fogs or
mists, change of scene by illusion, transformation and shape-shifting, the
draught of healing or forgetfulness, the magic wand, the raising of magical
obstacles, magical practice on the part of the gods—indeed all the arcane
apparatus of the Celt appears to be of the selfsame species as that known to
other European peoples and indeed to Asiatic and American races. Yet the
treatment is vastly different in its superior aesthetic presentation.
Nico
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