The Religion of the Ancient Celts

J. A. Macculloch

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• Publié par: showyug
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 31
• Langue: English
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Project Gutenberg's The Religion of the Ancient Celts, by J. A. MacCulloch This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Religion of the Ancient Celts Author: J. A. MacCulloch Release Date: January 12, 2005 [EBook #14672] [Date last updated: December 14, 2005] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT CELTS *** Produced by Ted Garvin, David King, and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT CELTS BY J.A. MACCULLOCH HON. D.D.(ST. ANDREWS); HON. CANON OF CUMBRAE CATHEDRAL AUTHOR OF "COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY" "RELIGION: ITS ORIGIN AND FORMS" "THE MISTY ISLE OF SKYE" "THE CHILDHOOD OF FICTION: A STUDY OF FOLK-TALES AND PRIMITIVE THOUGHT" Edinburgh: T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street 1911 Printed by MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. TO ANDREW LANG PREFACE The scientific study of ancient Celtic religion is a thing of recent growth. As a result of the paucity of materials for such a study, earlier writers indulged in the wildest speculative flights and connected the religion with the distant East, or saw in it the remains of a monotheistic faith or a series of esoteric doctrines veiled under polytheistic cults. With the works of MM. Gaidoz, Bertrand, and D'Arbois de Jubainville in France, as well as by the publication of Irish texts by such scholars as Drs. Windisch and Stokes, a new era may be said to have dawned, and a flood of light was poured upon the scanty remains of Celtic religion. In this country the place of honour among students of that religion belongs to Sir John Rh[^y]s, whose Hibbert Lectures On the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by Celtic Heathendom (1886) was an epoch-making work. Every student of the subject since that time feels the immense debt which he owes to the indefatigable researches and the brilliant suggestions of Sir John Rh[^y]s, and I would be ungrateful if I did not record my indebtedness to him. In his Hibbert Lectures, and in his later masterly work on The Arthurian Legend, however, he took the standpoint of the "mythological" school, and tended to see in the old stories myths of the sun and dawn and the darkness, and in the divinities sun-gods and dawn-goddesses and a host of dark personages of supernatural character. The present writer, studying the subject rather from an anthropological point of view and in the light of modern folk survivals, has found himself in disagreement with Sir John Rh[^y]s on more than one occasion. But he is convinced that Sir John would be the last person to resent this, and that, in spite of his mythological interpretations, his Hibbert Lectures must remain as a source of inspiration to all Celtic students. More recently the studies of M. Salomon Reinach and of M. Dottin, and the valuable little book on Celtic Religion, by Professor Anwyl, have broken fresh ground.1 In this book I have made use of all the available sources, and have endeavoured to study the subject from the comparative point of view and in the light of the anthropological method. I have also interpreted the earlier cults by means of recent folk-survivals over the Celtic area wherever it has seemed legitimate to do so. The results are summarised in the introductory chapter of the work, and students of religion, and especially of Celtic religion, must judge how far they form a true interpretation of the earlier faith of our Celtic forefathers, much of which resembles primitive religion and folk-belief everywhere. Unfortunately no Celt left an account of his own religion, and we are left to our own interpretations, more or less valid, of the existing materials, and to the light shed on them by the comparative study of religions. As this book was written during a long residence in the Isle of Skye, where the old language of the people still survives, and where the genius loci speaks everywhere of things remote and strange, it may have been easier to attempt to realise the ancient religion there than in a busier or more prosaic place. Yet at every point I have felt how much would have been gained could an old Celt or Druid have revisited his former haunts, and permitted me to question him on a hundred matters which must remain obscure. But this, alas, might not be! I have to thank Miss Turner and Miss Annie Gilchrist for valuable help rendered in the work of research, and the London Library for obtaining for me several works not already in its possession. Its stores are an invaluable aid to all students working at a distance from libraries. J.A. MACCULLOCH. THE RECTORY, BRIDGE OF ALLAN, October 1911. Footnote 1:(return) See also my article "Celts" in Hastings' Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, vol. iii. [TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Throughout this book, some characters are used which are not part of the Latin-1 character set used in this e-book. The string "[^y]" is used to represent a lower-case "Y" with a circumflex mark on top of it, "[=a]" is used to represent a lower-case "A" with a line on top of it, and "[oe]" is used to represent the "oe"-ligature. Numbers in superscripts such as 3 were used in the book to give edition numbers to books.] CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTORY II. THE CELTIC PEOPLE III. THE GODS OF GAUL AND THE CONTINENTAL CELTS IV. THE IRISH MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE V. THE TUATHA DÉ DANANN VI. THE GODS OF THE BRYTHONS VII. THE CÚCHULAINN CYCLE VIII. THE FIONN SAGA VIII. THE FIONN SAGA IX. GODS AND MEN X. THE CULT OF THE DEAD XI. PRIMITIVE NATURE WORSHIP XII. RIVER AND WELL WORSHIP XIII. TREE AND PLANT WORSHIP XIV. ANIMAL WORSHIP XV. COSMOGONY XVI. SACRIFICE, PRAYER, AND DIVINATION XVII. TABU XVIII. FESTIVALS XIX. ACCESSORIES OF CULT XX. THE DRUIDS XXI. MAGIC XXII. THE STATE OF THE DEAD XXIII. REBIRTH AND TRANSMIGRATION XXIV. ELYSIUM LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES THROUGHOUT THIS WORK (This list is not a Bibliography. ) BRAND: Rev. J. Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain. 3 vols. 1870. BLANCHET: A. Blanchet, Traité des monnaies gauloises. 2 vols. Paris, 1905. BERTRAND: A. Bertrand, Religion des gaulois. Paris, 1897. CAMPBELL, WHT : J.F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1890. CAMPBELL LF : J.F. Campbell, Leabhar na Feinne. London, 1872. CAMPBELL, Superstitions: J.G. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. 1900. CAMPBELL, Witchcraft: J.G. Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. 1902. CORMAC: Cormac's Glossary. Tr. by J. O'Donovan. Ed. by W. Stokes. Calcutta, 1868. COURCELLE—SENEUIL.: J.L. Courcelle-Seneuil, Les dieux gaulois d'après les monuments figurés. Paris, 1910. CIL: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1863 f. CM : Celtic Magazine. Inverness, 1875 f. CURTIN, HTI: J. Curtin, Hero Tales of Ireland. 1894. CURTIN, Tales: J. Curtin, Tales of the Fairies and Ghost World. 1895. DALZELL: Sir J.G. Dalzell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland. 1835. D'ARBOIS: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, Cours de litterature celtique. 12 vols. Paris, 1883-1902. D'ARBOIS Les Celtes: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, Les Celtes. Paris, 1904. D'ARBOIS Les Druides: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, Les Druides et les dieux celtiques à formes d'animaux. Paris, 1906. D'ARBOIS PH: H. D'Arbois de Jubainville, Les premiers habitants de l'Europe. 2 vols. Paris, 1889-1894. DOM MARTIN: Dom Martin, Le religion des gaulois. 2 vols. Paris, 1727. DOTTIN: G. Dottin, Manuel pour servir a l'étude de l'antiquité celtique. Paris, 1906. ELTON: C.I. Elton, Origins of English History. London, 1890. FRAZER, GB2: J.G. Frazer, Golden Bough2. 3 vols. 1900, GUEST: Lady Guest, The Mabinogion. 3 vols. Liandovery, 1849. HAZLITT: W.C. Hazlitt, Faiths and Folk-lore: A Dictionary of National Beliefs, Superstitions, and Popular Customs. 2 vols. 1905. HOLDER: A. Holder, Altceltischer Sprachschatz. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1891 f. HULL: Miss E. Hull, The Cuchullin Saga. London, 1898. IT : See Windisch-Stokes. JAI: Journal of the Anthropological Institute. London, 1871 f. JOYCE, OCR: P.W. Joyce, Old Celtic Romances 2. London, 1894. JOYCE, PN: P.W. Joyce, History of Irish Names of Places 4. 2 vols. London, 1901. JOYCE, SH: P.W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland. 2 vols. London, 1903. JULLIAN: C. Jullian, Recherches sur la religion gauloise. Bordeaux, 1903. KEATING: Keating, History of Ireland. Tr. O'Mahony. London, 1866. KENNEDY: P. Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. 1866. LARMINIE: W. Larminie, West Irish Folk-Tales and Romances. 1893. LEAHY: Leahy, Heroic Romances of Ireland. 2 vols. London, 1905. LE BRAZ: A. Le Braz, La Legende de la Mort chez les Bretons armoricains. 2 vols. Paris, 1902. LL: Leabhar Laignech (Book of Leinster), facsimile reprint. London, 1880. LOTH: Loth, Le Mabinogion. 2 vols. Paris, 1889. LU: Leabhar na h-Uidhre (Book of the Dun Cow), facsimile reprint. London, 1870. MACBAIN: A. MacBain, Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language. Inverness, 1896. MACDOUGALL: Macdougall, Folk and Hero Tales. London, 1891. MACKINLAY: J.M. Mackinlay, Folk-lore of Scottish Lochs and Springs. Glasgow, 1893. MARTIN: M. Martin, Description of the Western Islands of Scotland 2. London, 1716. MAURY: A. Maury, Croyances et legendes du Moyen Age. Paris, 1896. MONNIER: D. Monnier, Traditions populaires comparées. Paris, 1854. MOORE: A.W. Moore, Folk-lore of the Isle of Man. 1891. NUTT-MEYER: A. Nutt and K. Meyer, The Voyage of Bran. 2 vols. London, 1895-1897. O'CURRY MC: E. O'Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish. 4 vols. London, 1873. O'CURRY MS. Mat: E. O'Curry, MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History. Dublin, 1861. O'GRADY: S.H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica.