Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

appeal to the Vision of Adamnan, which gives the angels of the West the guardianship of the entrance to the regions of punishment, as well as to the cave of Loch Derg, which is most decidedly a pagan relic. This cave of Loch Derg is situated in the west of Ireland, as the corresponding cave Avernus is situated in the west of Italy."

Again, he remarks--"Somewhere, far away in the western ocean, there was supposed by the ancient Irish to be a spiritual country, called generally The Lands of the Living, and Traig Mar (great strand) and Tir Tairngire (Land of Promise) of Christian origin, as in the Dind-senchus, and Tir Mar (great land) as in another legend." Further--"The Land of the Living was the happy spirit's home of the Irish pagans until after the purification of all things by fire."

Parthalon was said in Irish legends to have come from Spain, not from the country of the Dead. Tethra, conquered in the battle of Mag Tured, became King of the Dead beyond the ocean. Chronos, also, reigned over the departed. The plain where these infernal deities dwelt was the Irish Mag cetne.

As the son of Manannân-mac-Lir returned to earth again, so did the Ossianic Find-mac-Cumaill, and Cailté; evidencing the Celtic belief in the soul's immortality.

According to some traditions, the Better-land of the, Druids floated in Neamhagas, as the Trimurti of the East were said to do in Akass or celestial ether. A bridge as. fine as a hair, like Mahometans believe to this day, connects this world with that beyond, which they truly styled the Greater Island. The inhabitants were robed in white at Murthemne, the flowery plain.

Sepulchral rites were as essential to the comfort of the Irish in their Sheol as to the Greeks in theirs. As burial of the body was required in the latter case, so was the

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