Archaic England Part 69

[1025] The capital of old Ceylon was Candy: I am unable to trace the origin of the port of Colombo.

[1026] Baring-Gould, S., _Curious Myths_, p. 527.

[1027] The inhabitants of Tukopia are described as: "Tall, light-coloured men with thick manes of long, golden hair ...

wonderful giants, with soft dark eyes, kind smiles, and child-like countenances". The surroundings of the villages of this Polynesian island were like well-tended parks, all brushwood having been carefully removed. "They presented sights so different in blissful simplicity from what were to be seen in Melanesia, they all looked so happy, gay, and alluring, that it hardly needed the invitations of the kind people, without weapons or suspicion, and with wreaths of sweet-scented flowers round their heads and bodies, to incline us to stay." This exquisite morsel of Arcadia was, like other parts of pure Polynesia, governed by a dynasty of hereditary chieftains, who were looked up to with the greatest respect, and to whom honours were paid almost as to demi-G.o.ds.--_Cf._ Sir Harry Johnston in _The Westminster Gazette_.

[1028] "I think that the Eponymus of the Argive Danaia was no other than that of the Israelite Tribe of Dan; only we are so used to confine ourselves to the soil of Palestine in our consideration of the Israelites that we treat them as if they were adscriptigleboe, and ignore the share they may have taken in the history of the world."--_Ethnology of Europe_, p. 137.

[1029] Caesar says it took twenty years' study to acquire: other writers say the Druids taught 20,000 verses.

[1030] _Cf._ _Evenings with a Reviewer_.

[1031] _Y Cymmroder_, xxiii.

[1032] _Cf._ Davies, E., _Celtic Researches_, p. 183.

[1033] In _Ragnarok_ Donnelly argues that the glacial epoch and the "drift" were due to the earth's collision with one of the many million comets which are careering through the solar universe.

It would certainly appear probable that such abnormous ma.s.ses of ice as are evidenced by the Glacial Period, must have been the result of abnormous heat first sucking up the lakes and rivers, and then returning them in the form of clouds, rain, and snow. Practically all mythologies contain an account of some unparalleled catastrophe, and in the opinion of Donnelly the widespread story of man's progenitors emerging from a cave is based upon the literal probability of man--if he survived at all--surviving in caverns. Among the numerous myths which Donnelly cites in support of his ingenious theory is the following British one: "The profligacy of mankind had provoked the great Supreme to send a pestilential wind upon the earth.

A pure poison descended, every blast was death. At this time the patriarch, distinguished for his integrity, was shut up, together with his select company, in the inclosure with the strong door (the cave?). Here the just ones were safe from injury. Presently a tempest of fire arose. It split the earth asunder to the great deep. The lake Llion burst its bounds, and the waves of the sea lifted themselves on high around the borders of Britain, the rain poured down from heaven, and the waters covered the earth." Donnelly believes that comets were the origin of the world-wide fiery-dragon myth. In support of this theory he might have instanced the following Scotch legend: "There lived once upon a time in Sutherland a great dragon, very fierce and strong. It was this dragon that burnt all the fir woods in Ross, Sutherland, and the Reay country, of which the remains charred, blackened, and half-decayed may be found in every moss. Magnificent forests they must have been, but the dragon set fire to them with his fiery breath and rolled over the whole land. Men fled from before his face and women fainted when his shadow crossed the sky-line. He made the whole land desert."--(Henderson, Dr. G. H., Intro. to _The Celtic Dragon Myth_, p. xxii.) The burnt forests found in Ireland were noted on p. 21.

[1034] All these "heretics" claimed to be the real possessors of the true Christian doctrine, and they charged Rome with being _Mere sotte_, an ignorant and blatant usurper: the incessant and insidious conflict which was carried on between Gnosticism and Rome has been considered in _A New Light on the Renaissance_, also in _The Lost Language of Symbolism_, and with the exception of a few surface errors there is little in those volumes which I should now rewrite. The murderous campaign which was launched against the Albigenses not only failed seemingly to stamp them out, but if Baring-Gould's opinion is valid the descendants of the Albigenses are even to-day not extinct. In _Cliff Castles_ he writes as follows: "There was a curious statement made in a work by E. Bose and L. Bonnemere in 1882, which if true would show that a lingering paganism is to be found among these people. It is to this effect: 'What is unknown to most is that at the present day there exist adepts of the worship (of the Celts) as practised before the Roman invasion, with the sole exception of human sacrifices, which they have been forcibly obliged to renounce. They are to be found on the two banks of the Loire, on the confines of the departments of Allier and Saone-et-Loire, where they are still tolerably numerous, especially in the latter department. They are designated in the country as Les Blancs, because that in their ceremonies they cover their heads with a white hood, and their priests are vested like the Druids in a long robe of the same colour.

They surround their proceedings with profound mystery; their gatherings take place at night in the heart of large forests, about an old oak, and as they are dispersed through the country over a great extent of land, they have to start for the a.s.sembly from different points at close of day so as to be able to reach home again before daybreak. They have four meetings in the year, but one, the most solemn, is held near the town of La Clayette under the presidence of the high priest. Those who come from the greatest distance do not reach their homes till the second night, and their absence during the intervening day alone reveals to the neighbours that they have attended an a.s.sembly of the Whites. Their priests are known, and are vulgarly designated as the bishops or archbishops of the Whites; they are actually druids or archdruids.... We have been able to verify these interesting facts brought to our notice by M. Parent, and our personal investigations into the matter enable us to affirm the exact.i.tude of what has been advanced.' If there be any truth in this strange story we are much more disposed to consider the Whites as relics of a Manichaean or Albigensian sect than as a survival of Druidism." P. 46.

[1035] _Origin and Meaning of Apple Cults._

[1036] "Lords and Commons of England--Consider what nation whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the Governors: a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit; acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. Therefore, the studies of learning in her deepest sciences have been so ancient and so eminent among us, that writers of good antiquity and able judgment have been persuaded that the School of Pythagoras, and the Persian Wisdom, took beginning from the old philosophy of this Island, Britain."--Milton.

[1037] In _The Lost Language of Symbolism_ I antic.i.p.ated this opinion.

[1038] Writing of the Pied Piper story Mr. Ernest Rhys observes: "There is every reason to believe that Hamelin was as near home as Newton, Isle of Wight, and that the Weser, deep and wide, was the Solent".--Preamble to _Fairy Gold_ (Ev.

Library).

[1039] _Proc. of Royal Irish Academy_, x.x.xiv., C., No. 8, p. 140.