Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

terrestrial god. The river Boyne may have had its name from the goddess Boann, wife of the Irish Neptune, Nodens.

Adolphe Pictet was formerly regarded as the most learned Celtic scholar in France. He is very precise in his belief of Irish polytheism, though influenced too strongly by the Cabiric theory. "The double Cabiric Irish chain," says he, "is only the ascending development of the two primitive principles."

Ordinary people may fail to follow this philosopher in his metaphysical views concerning the early Irish. They may doubt his progression of six degrees in Irish masculine and feminine divinities.

He held that Eire, Eo-anu, and Ceara were only the same being in three degrees of development; that Porsaibhean, daughter of Ceara, was the Greek Persephone, the Roman Proserpine; that Cearas and Ceara were Koros and his sister Kore; that Cearas was Dagh-dae, god of fire, and that he was a sort of demiurgus; that Aesar and Eire or Aeire, as fundamental duality, give birth to two chains of progressive parallels,--masculine and feminine, fire and water, sun and moon; that the goddess Lute or Lufe is power and desire, but Luth is force; that the Midr, children of Daghdae, were rays of God; that Aesar was god of intelligible fire; that Brighit was goddess of wisdom and poetry, like Nath, while Aedh was goddess of vital fire.

Much of this might be esteemed by some readers as a pleasing or romantic philosophy of Irish mythology.

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It may be useful to look at the religion of the Manx, or people of the Isle of Man, who were, if not Irish, close kinsmen of the same. We take the following from a Manx poem, first printed in 1778, as dealing with the divinities.

p. 136

"Mananan beg, hight Mac of Lerr,
Was he the first that ruled the land;
A pagan, and a sorcerer,
He was, at least I understand."

This Mananan, a deity of the Tuath de Danaans, was god of waters; but Mac of Lir was styled son of the sea. Neid and Bad were gods of the wind. We are informed by the author that "By the name Gubh or Gobh, a blaze, fire, &c., the pagan Irish meant to insinuate that Sam-Gubha were particularly inspired by the solar heat." The motto of old was, "Let the altar for ever blaze to Daghdae."

Easc was the new moon to Manx and Irish. The Irish still say Paternoster at the new moon, and, crossing themselves, add, "May you leave us as safe as you found us!" Ce-Aehd was a goddess of Nature. An old poem says, "There was weeping in the day of Saman Bache." Ceara was the sun; and Badhh-Be-bad, the god of wind. Brid, daughter of Daghdae, was the goddess of wisdom and poets; An, the mater dea, Aodh, goddess of fire. Manx traditions and customs are similar to the Irish.

Sword-worship, in some respects, figured in the past, as with the Huns, &c. Famous heroes or deities have had the names of their swords preserved, as in the case of Arthur and Fingal.