The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries Part 30

The scribe ends this part of the story by letting it be known that Midir has struck off the head of his other wife, Fuamnach, the cause of all Etain's trouble.

The second section of the tale introduces Etain as queen of Eochaid Airem, high king of Ireland, and the most curious and important part of it shows how she was loved by Ailill Aenguba. Ailill, so far as blood kinship went, was the brother of Eochaid, though apparently either an incarnation of Midir or else possessed by him: Etain acceded to his love, but he was under a strange love-weakness; and on two occasions when he attempted to advance his desires an overpowering sleep fell on him, and each time Etain met a man in Ailill's shape--as though it were his 'double'--bemoaning his weakness. On a third occasion she asked who the man was, and he declared himself to be Midir, and besought her to return with him to the Otherworld. But her worldly or human memory clouded her subconscious memory, and she did not recognize Midir, yet promised to go with him on gaining Eochaid's permission. After this event, curiously enough, Ailill was healed of his strange love-malady.

In the third part of the story, Midir and Eochaid are playing games.

Midir loses the first two and with them great riches, but winning the third claims the right to place his arms about Etain and kiss her.

Eochaid asked a month's delay. The last day of the month had pa.s.sed. It was night. Eochaid in his palace at Tara awaited the coming of his rival, Midir; and though all the doors of the palace had been firmly closed for the occasion, and armed soldiers surrounded the queen, Midir like a spirit suddenly stood in the centre of the court and claimed the wager. Then, grasping and kissing Etain, he mounted in the air with her and very quickly pa.s.sed out through the opening of the great chimney. In consternation, King Eochaid and his warriors hurried without the palace; and there, on looking up, they saw two white swans flying over Tara, bound together by a golden chain.[400]

THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF DERMOT

With a difficult task before him, Dermot--as was the case with Mongan--is reminded of his pre-existence as a hero in the Otherworld with Manannan Mac Lir and Angus Oge:--'Now spoke Fergus Truelips, Finn's ollave, and said: "Cowardly and punily thou shrinkest, Dermot; for with most potent Manannan, son of Lir, thou studiedst and wast brought up, in the Land of Promise and in the bay-indented coasts; with Angus Oge, too, the Daghda's son, wast most accurately taught; and it is not just that now thou lackest even a moderate portion of their skill and daring, such as might serve to convey Finn and his party up this rock or bastion." At these words Dermot's face grew red; he laid hold on Manannan's magic staves that he had, and, as once again he redly blushed, by dint of skill in martial feats he with a leap rose on his javelin's shafts and so gained his two soles' breadth of the solid glebe that overhung the water's edge.'[401]

RE-BIRTH OF TUAN

Tuan, as the son of Starn, lived one hundred years as the brother of Partholon, the first man to reach Ireland; and then, after two hundred and twenty years, was re-born as the son of Cairell. This story in its oldest form is preserved in the _Book of the Dun Cow_, and seems to have been composed during the late ninth or early tenth century.[402]

RE-BIRTH AMONG THE BRYTHONS

Such then are the re-birth stories of the Gaels. Among the Brythons the same ancient doctrine prevailed, though we have fewer clear records of it. Of the Brythonic Re-birth Doctrine as philosophically expounded in _Barddas_, mention has already been made.

In the ancient Welsh story about Taliessin, Gwion after many transformations, magical in their nature, is re-born as that great poet of Wales, his mother being a G.o.ddess, Caridwen, who dwells beneath the waters of Lake Tegid. In its present mystical form this tale cannot be traced further than the end of the sixteenth century, though the transformation incidents are presupposed in the _Book of Taliessin_, a thirteenth-century ma.n.u.script.[403] Besides being the re-birth of Gwion, Taliessin may be regarded as a bardic initiate high in degree, who is possessed of all magical and druidical powers.[403] He made a voyage to the Otherworld, Caer Sidi; and this seems to indicate some close connexion between ancient rites of initiation and his occult knowledge of all things.[404] Like the Irish re-birth and Otherworld tales, it also suggests the relation between the world of death or Faerie and the world of human embodiment.

From his harrying of Hades, the Brythonic Gwydion secured the Head of Hades' Cauldron of Regeneration or Re-birth; and when corpses of slain warriors are thrown into it they arise next day as excellent as ever, except that they are unable to speak; which circ.u.mstance may be equal to saying that the ordinary uninitiated man when re-born is unable to speak of his previous incarnation, because he has no memory of it. This Cauldron of Re-birth, like so many objects mentioned in the ancient bardic literature, is evidently a mystic symbol: it suggests the same correspondences, as propounded in the modern _Barddas_, between the dead and the living, between death and re-birth; and Gwydion having been a great culture hero of Wales probably promulgated a doctrine of re-birth, and hence is described as being able to resuscitate the dead.[405]

KING ARTHUR AS A REINCARNATED HERO

Judging from substantial evidence set forth above in chapter V, the most famous of all Welsh heroes, Arthur, equally with Cuchulainn his Irish counterpart, can safely be considered both as a G.o.d apart from the human plane of existence, and thus like the Tuatha De Danann or Fairy-Folk, and also like a great national hero and king (such as Mongan was) incarnated in a physical body. The taking of Arthur to Avalon by his life-guardian, the Lady of the Lake, and by his own sister, and by two other fairy women who live in that Otherworld of Sacred Apple-Groves, is sufficient in itself, we believe, to prove him of a descent more divine than that of ordinary men. And the belief in his return from that Otherworld--a return so confidently looked for by the Brythonic peoples--seems to be a belief (whether recognized as such or not) that the Great Hero will be reincarnated as a Messiah destined to set them free. In Avalon, Arthur lives now, and 'It is from there that the Britons of England and of France have for a long time awaited his coming'.[406] And Malory expressing the sentiment in his age writes[407]:--'Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross. I will not say it shall be so, but rather I will say, here in this world he changed his life.' If we consider Arthur's pa.s.sing and expected return, as many do, in a purely mythological aspect, we must think of him for the time as a sun-G.o.d, and yet even then cannot escape altogether from the re-birth idea; for, as a study of ancient Egyptian mythology shows, there is still the same set of relations.[408] There are the sun-symbols always made use of to set forth the doctrine of re-birth, be it Egyptian, Indian, Mexican, or Celtic:--the death of a mortal like the pa.s.sing of Arthur is represented by the sun-set on the horizon between the visible world here and the invisible world beyond the Western Ocean, and the re-birth is the sunrise of a new day.

NON-CELTIC PARALLELS

As a non-Celtic parallel to what has preceded concerning the Otherworld of the Celts and their Doctrine of Re-birth, we offer the second of the _Stories of the High-priests of Memphis_, as published by Mr. F. L.

Griffith from ancient ma.n.u.scripts.[409] It is a history of Si-Osiri (the son of Osiris), whose father was Setme Khamuas. This wonderful divine son when still a child took his human father on a journey to see Amenti, the Otherworld of the Dead; and when twelve years of age he was wiser than the wisest of the scribes and unequalled in magic. At this period in his life there arrived in Egypt an Ethiopian magician who came with the object of humbling the kingdom; but Si-Osiri read what was in the unopened letter of the stranger, and knew that its bearer was the reincarnation of 'Hor the son of the Negress', the most formidable of the three Ethiopian magicians who fifteen hundred years before had waged war with the magicians of Egypt. At that time the Egyptian Hor, the son of Pa-neshe, had defeated the great magician of Ethiopia in the final struggle between White and Black Magic which took place in the presence of the Pharaoh.[410] And 'Hor the son of the Negress' had agreed not to return to Egypt again for fifteen hundred years. But now the time was elapsed, and, unmasking the character of the messenger, Si-Osiri destroyed him with magical fire. After this, Si-Osiri revealed himself as the reincarnation of Hor the son of Pa-neshe, and declared that Osiris had permitted him to return to earth to destroy the powerful hereditary enemy of Egypt. When the revelation was made, Si-Osiri 'pa.s.sed away as a shade', going back again, even as the Celtic Arthur, into the realm invisible from which he came.

As in ancient Ireland, where many kings or great heroes were regarded as direct incarnations or reincarnations of G.o.ds or divine beings from the Otherworld, so in Egypt the Pharaohs were thought to be G.o.ds in human bodies, sent by Osiris to rule the Children of the Sun.[411] In Mexico and Peru there was a similar belief.[412] In the Indian _Mahabharata_, Rama and Krishna are at once G.o.ds and men.[413] The celebrated philosophical poem known as the _Bhagavadgita_ also a.s.serts Krishna's descent from the G.o.ds; and the same view is again enforced and extended in the _Hari-vansa_ and especially in the _Bhagavata Purana_.[413] The Indian _Laws of Manu_ say that 'even an infant king must not be despised from an idea that he is a mere mortal; for he is a great deity in human form'.[414] In ancient Greece it was a common opinion that Zeus was reincarnated from age to age in the great national heroes. 'Alexander the Great was regarded not merely as the son of Zeus, but as Zeus himself.' And other great Greeks were regarded as G.o.ds while living on earth, like Lycurgus the Spartan law-giver, who after his death was worshipped as one of the divine ones.[415]

Among the great philosophers, the ancient doctrine of re-birth was a personal conviction: Buddha related very many of his previous reincarnations, according to the _Gatakamala_; Pythagoras is said to have gone to the temple of Here and recognized there an ancient shield which he had carried in a previous life when he was Euphorbus, a Homeric hero.[416] From what Plato, in his _Meno_, quoted from an old poet, it seems very probable that there may be some sort of relationship between legends mentioning the Rites of Proserpine, like the legend of Aeneas in Virgil, and certain of the Irish Otherworld and Re-birth legends among the Gaels, as we have already suggested:--'For from whomsoever Persephone hath accepted the atonement of ancient woe, their souls she sendeth up once more to the upper sun in the ninth year. From these grow up glorious kings and men of swift strength, and men surpa.s.sing in poetical skill; and for all future time they are called holy heroes among men.' Among modern philosophers and poets in Europe and America the same ideas find their echo: Wordsworth in his _Ode to Immortality_ definitely inculcates pre-existence; Emerson in his _Threnody_, and Tennyson in his _De Profundis_, seem committed to the re-birth doctrine, and Walt Whitman in his _Leaves of Gra.s.s_ without doubt accepted it as true. Certain German philosophers, too, appear to hold views in harmony with what is also the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, e. g. Schopenhauer, in _The World as Will and Idea_, J. G. Fichte, in _The Destiny of Man_, and Herder, in _Dialogues on Metempsychosis_. The Emperor of j.a.pan is still the Divine Child of the Sun, the head of the _Order of the Rising Sun_, and is always regarded by his subjects as the incarnation of a great being. The Great Lama of Thibet is believed to reincarnate immediately after death.[417] William II of Germany seems to echo, perhaps unconsciously, the same doctrine when he claims to be ruling by divine right.[418]

That the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth is a direct and complete confirmation of the Psychological Theory of the nature and origin of the belief in fairies is self-evident. Could it be shown to be scientifically plausible in itself, as well-educated Celts consider it to be--and much evidence to be derived from a study of states of consciousness, e. g. dreams, somnambulism, trance, crystal-gazing, changed personality, subconsciousness, and so forth, indicates that it might be shown to be so--it would effectively prove the theory. Fairies would then be beings of the Otherworld who can enter the human plane of life by submitting to the natural process of birth in a physical body, and would correspond to the _Alcheringa_ ancestors of the Arunta. In chapter xii following, such a proof of the theory is attempted.

RE-BIRTH AMONG MODERN CELTS

One of the chief objects of this chapter is to show that the Re-birth Doctrine of the Celts, like most beliefs bound up with the Fairy-Faith, still survives; thus further proving that Celtic tradition is an unbroken thing from times prehistoric until to-day. We shall therefore proceed to bring forward the following original material, collected by ourselves, as evidence on this point:--

_In Ireland_

In Ireland I found two districts where the Re-birth Doctrine has not been wholly forgotten. The first one is in the country round Knock Ma, near Tuam. After Mrs. ---- had told me about fairies, I led up to the subject of re-birth, and the most valuable of all my Irish finds concerning the belief was the result. For this woman of Belclare told me that it was believed by many of the old people, when she was a girl living a few miles west of Knock Ma, that they had lived on this earth before as men and women; but, she added, 'You could hardly get them to talk about their belief. It was a sort of secret which they who held it discussed freely only among themselves.' They believed, too, that disease and misfortune in old age come as a penalty for sins committed in a former life.[419] This expiatory or purgatorial aspect of the Re-birth Doctrine seems to have been more widespread than the doctrine in its bare outlines; for the Belclare woman in speaking of it was able to recall from memories of forty-five or fifty years ago what was then a popular story about a disease-worn man and an eel-fisherman:--

The diseased man as he watches the eel-fisherman taking up his baskets, contrasts his own wretched physical condition with the vigour and good health of the latter, and attributes the misfortune which is upon himself to bad actions in a life prior to the one he is then living. And here is the unhappy man's lamentation:--

Fliuch, fuar ata mo leabaidh; Ata fearthainn agus geur-ghaoith; Ataim ag ioc na h-uaille, A's tusa ag faire do chliaibhin.

(Wet, cold is my bed; There is rain and sharp wind; I am paying for pride, And you watching your [eel-]basket.)

The teller of the story insisted on giving me these verses in Irish, for she said they have much less meaning in English, and I took them down; and to verify them and the story in which they find a place, I went to the cottage a second time. There is no doubt, therefore, that the legend is a genuine echo of the religion of pre-Christian Ireland, in which reincarnation appears to have been clearly inculcated and was probably the common belief.

I once asked Steven Ruan, the Galway piper, if he had ever heard of such a thing as people being born more than once here on this earth, seeing that I was seeking for traces of the old Irish Doctrine of Re-birth. The answer he gave me was this:--'I have often heard it said that people born and dead come into this world again. I have heard the old people say that we have lived on this earth before; and I have often met old men and women who believed they had lived before. The idea pa.s.sed from one old person to another, and was a common belief, though you do not hear much about it now.'

A highly educated Irishman now living in California tells me of his own knowledge that there was a popular and sincere belief among many of the Irish people throughout Ireland that Charles Parnell, their great champion in modern times, was the reincarnation of one of the old Gaelic heroes. This shows how the ancient doctrine is still practically applied. There is also an opinion held by certain very prominent Irishmen now living in Ireland, with whom I have been privileged to discuss the re-birth doctrine, that both Patrick and Columba are likewise to be regarded as ancient Gaelic heroes, who were reincarnated to work for the uplifting of the Gael.[420]

A legend concerning Lough Gur, County Limerick, indicates that the sleeping-hero type of tale is a curious aspect of an ancient re-birth doctrine. In such tales, heroes and their warrior companions are held under enchantment, awaiting the mystic hour to strike for them to issue forth and free their native land from the rule of the Saxon. Usually they are so held within a mysterious cavern, as is the case of Arthur and his men, according to differently localized Welsh stories; or they are in the depths of magic hills and mountains like most Irish heroes.

The heroes under enchantment with their companions are to be considered as resident in the Otherworld, and their return to human action as a return to the human plane of life. The Lough Gur legend is about Garret Fitzgerald, the Earl of Desmond, who rebelled against Queen Elizabeth.

Modern folk-tradition regards him as the guardian deity of the Lough, and as dwelling in an enchanted palace situated beneath its waters. As Count John de Salis, whose ancestral home is the Lough Gur estate, a.s.sures me, the peasants of the region declare themselves convinced that the earl once in seven years appears riding across the lake surface on a phantom white horse shod with shoes of silver; and they believe that when the horse's silver shoes are worn out the enchantment will end.

Then, like Arthur when his stay in Avalon ends, Garret Fitzgerald will return to the world of human life again to lead the Irish hosts to victory.[421]

_In Scotland_

Dr. Alexander Carmichael, author of _Carmina Gadelica_, who as a folk-lorist has examined modern peasant beliefs throughout the Highlands and Islands more thoroughly than any other living Scotsman, informs me that apparently there was at one time in the Highlands a definite belief in the ancient Celtic Re-birth Doctrine, because he has found traces of it there, though these traces were only in the vaguest and barest outline.

_In the Isle of Man_

Mr. William Cashen, keeper of Peel Castle, reported as follows with respect to a re-birth doctrine in the Isle of Man:--'Here in the Island among old Manx people I have heard it said, but only in a joking way, that we will come back to this earth again after some thousands of years. The idea wasn't very popular nor often discussed, and there is no belief in it now to my knowledge. It seems to have come down from the Druids.'

This is Mr. William Oates' testimony, given at Ballasalla:--'Some held a belief in the coming back (re-birth) of spirits. I can't explain it. A certain Manxman I knew used to talk about the transmigration of spirits; but I shall not give his name, since many of his family still live here on the Island.'

Mr. Thomas Kelley, of Glen Meay, had no clear idea about the ancient Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth, though he said:--'My grandfather had a notion that he would be back here again at the Resurrection to claim his land.' This undoubtedly shows how the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection and the Celtic one of Re-birth may have blended, both being based on the common idea of a physical post-existence.

_In Wales_

In the Pentre Evan country where I discovered such rich folk-lore, I found my chief witness from there not unfamiliar with the ancient Celtic belief in Re-birth. One day I asked her if she had ever heard the old folk say that they had lived before on this earth as men and women.

Somewhat surprised at the question, for to answer it would reveal half-secret thoughts of which, as it proved, not even her own nephew or niece had knowledge, she hesitated a moment, and, then, looking at me intently, said with great earnestness, 'Yes; and I often believe myself that I have lived before.' And because of the unusual question, which seemed to reveal on my part familiarity with the belief, she added, 'And I think you must be of the same opinion as to yourself.' She explained then that the belief was a rare one now, and held by only a few of the oldest of her old acquaintances in that region, and they seldom talk about it to their children for fear of being laughed at.

Mr. J. Ceredig Davies, the well-known folk-lorist of Llanilar, near Aberystwyth, speaking of the Welsh Re-birth Doctrine, said he remembers, while in Patagonia, having discussed Druidism with a friend there, the late John Jones, originally of Bala, North Wales, and hearing him remark, 'Indeed, I have a half-belief that I have been in this world before.'

Mr. Jones, our witness from Pontrhydfendigaid, offers testimony of the highest value concerning Druidism and the doctrine of re-birth in Central Wales, as follows:--'Taliessin believed in re-birth, and he was the first to interpret the Druidic laws. He believed that from age to age he had been in many human bodies. He believed that he possessed the same soul as Enoch and Eli, that he had been a judge sitting on the case of Jesus Christ--"I was a judge at the Crucifixion," he is reported as saying--and that he had been a prisoner in bonds at the Court of Cynfelyn, not far from Aberystwyth, for a year and a day. Two hundred years ago, belief in re-birth was common. Many still held it when I was a boy. And even yet here in this region some people are imbued with the ancient faith of the Druids, and firmly believe that the spirit migrates from one body to another. It is said, too, that a pregnant woman is able to determine what kind of a child she will give birth to.'[422]

Mr. Jones's use of the phrase 'migrate from one body to another' led us to suspect that it might refer to transmigration, i. e. re-birth into animal bodies, which Dr. Tylor in _Primitive Culture_{4} (ii. 6-11, 17, &c.) shows is a distorted or corrupted interpretation of what he calls the reasonable and straightforward doctrine of re-birth into human bodies only. But when we questioned Mr. Jones further about the matter he said:--'The belief I refer to is re-birth into human bodies. I have heard of witches being able to change their own body into the body of an animal or demon, but I never heard of men transmigrating into the bodies of animals. Some people have said that the Druids taught transmigration of this sort, but I do not think they did--though Welsh poets seem to have made use of such a doctrine for the sake of poetry.'

In order to gain evidence concerning the Re-birth Doctrine as concrete as possible from so important a witness as Mr. Jones, we asked him further if he could recall the names of one or two of his old acquaintances who believed in it; and he said:--'One old character named Thomas Williams, a dyer by trade, nearly believed in it, and Shon Evan Rolant firmly believed in it. Rolant was the owner of Old Abbey Farm on the Cross-Wood Estate, and originally was a well-to-do and respectable farmer, but in consequence of mortgages on the estate he lost his property. After being dispossessed and badly treated, he used to recite the one hundred and ninth Psalm, to bring curses upon those who worked against him in the dispossession process; and it was thought that he succeeded in bringing curses upon them.'

The Rev. T. M. Morgan, Vicar of Newchurch parish, near Carmarthen, who has already offered valuable evidence concerning the _Tylwyth Teg_ (see pp. 149-51), contributes additional material about the Doctrine of Re-birth in South Wales:--'My father said there used to be expressed in Cardiganshire before his time, a belief in re-birth. This was in accord with Druidism, namely, that all human beings formerly existed on the moon, the world of middle light, and the queen of heaven; that those who there lived a righteous life were thence born on the sun, and thence onward to the highest heaven; and that those whose moon life had been unrighteous were born on this earth of suffering and sin. Through right-living on earth souls are able to return to the moon, and then evolve to the sun and highest heaven; or, through wrong living on earth, souls are born in the third condition, which is one of utter darkness and of still greater suffering and sin than our world offers. But even from this lowest condition souls can work upwards to the highest glory if they strive successfully against evil. The G.o.ddess of Heaven or Mother of all human beings was known as _Brenhines-y-nef_. I am unable to tell if she is the moon itself or lived in the moon. On the other hand, the sun was considered the father of all human beings. According to the old belief, every new moon brings the souls who were unfit to be born on the sun, to deposit them here on our earth. Sometimes there are more souls seeking embodiment on earth than there are infant bodies to contain them. Hence souls fight among themselves to occupy a body.

Occasionally one soul tries to drive out from a body the soul already in possession of it, in order to possess it for itself. In consequence of such struggling of soul against soul, men in this world manifest madness and tear themselves. Whenever such a condition showed itself, the person exhibiting it was called a _Lloerig_ or "one who is moon-torn"--_Lloer_ meaning moon, and _rhigo_ to notch or tear; and in the English word _lunatic_, meaning "moon-struck", we have a similar idea.'[423]

Mr. David Williams, J.P., of Carmarthen, who has already told us much about Welsh fairies (see pp. 151-3), offers equally valuable information about the 'Three Circles of Existence' and the Druidic scheme of soul-evolution, as follows:--'According to the Druids, there are three Circles through which souls must pa.s.s. The first is _Cylch y Ceugant_, the second _Cylch Abred_, the third _Cylch y Gwynfyd_. The name of each circle refers to a special kind of spiritual training, and if in reaching the second circle you do not gain its perfection by completing all its provisions [probably in due order and time], you must begin again in Circle One; but if you reach the perfection of Circle Two you go on to Circle Three. In Circle One, which is unlocated, the soul has no condition of bodily existence as in Circle Two. The second Circle appears to be a state something like the one we are in now--a mixture of good and evil. The third Circle is a state of perfection and blessedness. In it the soul's environments correspond to all its wishes and desires, and there is contact with G.o.d.' At this point I asked if there was loss of individuality in Circle Three, and Mr. Williams replied:--'No, there is not loss of individuality.' Hence, as we suggest, _Cylch y Gwynfyd_ is the Druidic parallel to the Nirvana of Indian metaphysics--being like it, a state of perfect and unlimited self-consciousness which man never knows in earth-life. And, finally, Mr. Williams said in relation to re-birth:--'About the years 1780-1820 there lived an old bard in Glamorganshire who was actually a Druid, though he professed to be a Christian as well, and he believed fully in re-birth. His common name was Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg); and he [with Owen Jones and William O. Pughe] edited the famous _Archaiology of Wales_.'