Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

couple of sacred hares engaged in devouring it. The Berlin Museum has a representation of some rude satyrs jestingly offering it to a woman. Artists, in the Middle Ages, have shamelessly made it the plant presented by the Angel to the Virgin Mary. The Bismarcks use the shamrock with the motto "In trinitate robur." The sacred Palasa of India has triple leaves. The French, like the Irish, retained it as a national symbol. To this hour the three-leaved, or Fleur-de-lis plant is preserved as a sacred, symbol in architecture, on altar-cloths, &c., the emblem being now seen in Nonconformist churches as well as in the Episcopalian.

It was the three-in-one mystery. "Adorning the head of Osiris, it fell off at the moment of his death. As the trefoil symbolized generative force in man, the loss of the garland was the deprivation of vigour in the god, or, as some think, the suspension of animal strength. in winter"

In the Dublin Museum is a beautiful copper vessel, or plate, with the trefoil, from Japan. In the Mellor church of Derbyshire is a very ancient font, with rude figures, horses, and men with Norman helmets. The tails of the horses, after passing round the body, end in a rude form of trefoil, which another horse, with open mouth, is prepare to eat, while its own long tail is similarly presented to the open mouth of its equine neighbour. The shamrock w mysteriously engraved on the neck of the oriental crucified figure in the relic collection at Glendalough.

The OAK was also venerated by the early Irish. We read of Kil-dair, the Druids' cell or church of the Maig-adhair or Dearmhagh, the field of oaks; the Daire-calgaich, now Londonderry, the wood of Calgac; Dairbhre (now Valentine, Isle of Kerry), the place producing oaks Derrynane was Doire-Fhionain, the oak grove of Finian; Doire-maelain, now Derryvullan, the grove of

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