Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

re-born at Christmas, when rising toward the northern summer lands."

Scotland, peopled by the same race, on its western side, as Ireland, had the like veneration for stone crosses. Donald Clark, a Gaelic scholar, derives Inverary from the river Aray and Aoradh (worshipped). "This place," says he, "is still called Crois-an-Sleuchdte (kneeling cross), because the pilgrims on arriving there were wont to kneel in prayer Before, however, they arrived here, they had to ford the river Aray at a point where the cross came in sight, and in sight of the cross they aoradh (worshipped), and the stream was from this association called uisgge aoradh (water of worship), not simply aoradh (worship)"

One cross of Kintyre is made of four round bosses, with a fifth in the centre At Keills, of Kintyre, the cross is highly sculptured. A winged figure appears in the top compartment, and the centre is circular, with three bosses inside, surrounded by four dogs Captain White finds "the conical or pyramidal weather-cope on so many the Irish crosses is conspicuously absent in the Scottish examples." He observed, however, that "the primitive kind of four-holed cross, met with in Knapdale (Kintyre) is common to Wales, Cornwall, Cumberland, and other western districts."

His remarks on serpent crosses are as follows--"The representations of serpents, so prevalent in the one set sculptures (Irish), are almost unknown to the other, though on the eastern pillar-shafts they so frequently appear. I cannot recall a single instance of a serpent delineated a West Highland ecclesiastical carving in the mainland districts I have traversed; it appears, however, on a cross in Islay, and on one in Iona." The open wheel, so prevalent in Ireland, occurs, according to Captain White, but thrice in Scotland.

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