The Religion of the Ancient Celts Part 30

Samhain, as has been seen, was also a festival of the dead, whose ghosts were fed at this time.[905]

As the powers of growth were in danger and in eclipse in winter, men thought it necessary to a.s.sist them. As a magical aid the Samhain bonfire was chief, and it is still lit in the Highlands. Brands were carried round, and from it the new fire was lit in each house. In North Wales people jumped through the fire, and when it was extinct, rushed away to escape the "black sow" who would take the hindmost.[906] The bonfire represented the sun, and was intended to strengthen it. But representing the sun, it had all the sun's force, hence those who jumped through it were strengthened and purified. The Welsh reference to the hindmost and to the black sow may point to a former human sacrifice, perhaps of any one who stumbled in jumping through the fire. Keating speaks of a Druidic sacrifice in the bonfire, whether of man or beast is not specified.[907] Probably the victim, like the scapegoat, was laden with the acc.u.mulated evils of the year, as in similar New Year customs elsewhere. Later belief regarded the sacrifice, if sacrifice there was, as offered to the powers of evil--the black sow, unless this animal is a reminiscence of the corn-spirit in its harmful aspect. Earlier powers, whether of growth or of blight, came to be a.s.sociated with Samhain as demoniac beings--the "malignant bird flocks" which blighted crops and killed animals, the _samhanach_ which steals children, and Mongfind the banshee, to whom "women and the rabble" make pet.i.tions on Samhain eve.[908] Witches, evil-intentioned fairies, and the dead were particularly active then.

Though the sacrificial victim had come to be regarded as an offering to the powers of blight, he may once have represented a divinity of growth or, in earlier times, the corn-spirit. Such a victim was slain at harvest, and harvest is often late in northern Celtic regions, while the slaying was sometimes connected not with the harvest field, but with the later thres.h.i.+ng. This would bring it near the Samhain festival. The slaying of the corn-spirit was derived from the earlier slaying of a tree or vegetation-spirit embodied in a tree and also in a human or animal victim. The corn-spirit was embodied in the last sheaf cut as well as in an animal or human being.[909] This human victim may have been regarded as a king, since in late popular custom a mock king is chosen at winter festivals.[910] In other cases the effigy of a saint is hung up and carried round the different houses, part of the dress being left at each. The saint has probably succeeded to the traditional ritual of the divine victim.[911] The primitive period in which the corn-spirit was regarded as female, with a woman as her human representative, is also recalled in folk-custom. The last sheaf is called the Maiden or the Mother, while, as in Northamptons.h.i.+re, girls choose a queen on S.

Catharine's day, November 26th, and in some Christmas pageants "Yule's wife," as well as Yule, is present, corresponding to the May queen of the summer festival.[912] Men also masqueraded as women at the Calends.

The dates of these survivals may be explained by that dislocation of the Samhain festival already pointed out. This view of the Samhain human sacrifices is supported by the Irish offerings to the Fomorians--G.o.ds of growth, later regarded as G.o.ds of blight, and to Cromm Cruaich, in both cases at Samhain.[913] With the evolution of religious thought, the slain victim came to be regarded as an offering to evil powers.

This aspect of Samhain, as a festival to promote and a.s.sist festivity, is further seen in the belief in the increased activity of fairies at that time. In Ireland, fairies are connected with the Tuatha De Danann, the divinities of growth, and in many folk-tales they are a.s.sociated with agricultural processes. The use of evergreens at Christmas is perhaps also connected with the carrying of them round the fields in older times, as an evidence that the life of nature was not extinct.[914]

Samhain may thus be regarded as, in origin, an old pastoral and agricultural festival, which in time came to be looked upon as affording a.s.sistance to the powers of growth in their conflict with the powers of blight. Perhaps some myth describing this combat may lurk behind the story of the battle of Mag-tured fought on Samhain between the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorians. While the powers of blight are triumphant in winter, the Tuatha Dea are represented as the victors, though they suffer loss and death. Perhaps this enshrines the belief in the continual triumph of life and growth over blight and decay, or it may arise from the fact that Samhain was both a time of rejoicing for the ingathered harvest, and of wailing for the coming supremacy of winter and the reign of the powers of blight.

BELTANE.

In Cormac's _Glossary_ and other texts, "Beltane" is derived from _bel-tene_, "a goodly fire," or from _bel-dine_, because newly-born (_dine_) cattle were offered to Bel, an idol-G.o.d.[915] The latter is followed by those who believe in a Celtic Belus, connected with Baal. No such G.o.d is known, however, and the G.o.d Belenos is in no way connected with the Semitic divinity. M. D'Arbois a.s.sumes an unknown G.o.d of death, Beltene (from _beltu_, "to die"), whose festival Beltane was.[916] But Beltane was a festival of life, of the sun s.h.i.+ning in his strength. Dr.

Stokes gives a more acceptable explanation of the word. Its primitive form was _belo-te_[_p_]_nia_, from _belo-s_, "clear," "s.h.i.+ning," the root of the names Belenos and Belisama, and _te_[_p_]_nos_, "fire." Thus the word would mean something like "bright fire," perhaps the sun or the bonfire, or both.[917]

The folk-survivals of the Beltane and Midsummer festivals show that both were intended to promote fertility.

One of the chief ritual acts at Beltane was the kindling of bonfires, often on hills. The house-fires in the district were often extinguished, the bonfire being lit by friction from a rotating wheel--the German "need-fire."[918] The fire kept off disease and evil, hence cattle were driven through it, or, according to Cormac, between two fires lit by Druids, in order to keep them in health during the year.[919] Sometimes the fire was lit beneath a sacred tree, or a pole covered with greenery was surrounded by the fuel, or a tree was burned in the fire.[920] These trees survive in the Maypole of later custom, and they represented the vegetation-spirit, to whom also the wors.h.i.+ppers a.s.similated themselves by dressing in leaves. They danced sunwise round the fire or ran through the fields with blazing branches or wisps of straw, imitating the course of the sun, and thus benefiting the fields.[921] For the same reason the tree itself was probably borne through the fields. Houses were decked with boughs and thus protected by the spirit of vegetation.[922]

An animal representing the spirit of vegetation may have been slain. In late survivals of Beltane at Dublin, a horse's skull and bones were thrown into the fire,[923] the attenuated form of an earlier sacrifice or slaying of a divine victim, by whom strength was transferred to all the animals which pa.s.sed through the fire. In some cases a human victim may have been slain. This is suggested by customs surviving in Perths.h.i.+re in the eighteenth century, when a cake was broken up and distributed, and the person who received a certain blackened portion was called the "Beltane carline" or "devoted." A pretence was made of throwing him into the fire, or he had to leap three times through it, and during the festival he was spoken of as "dead."[924] Martin says that malefactors were burned in the fire,[925] and though he cites no authority, this agrees with the Celtic use of criminals as victims.

Perhaps the victim was at one time a human representative of the vegetation-spirit.

Beltane cakes or bannocks, perhaps made of the grain of the sacred last sheaf from the previous harvest, and therefore sacramental in character, were also used in different ways in folk-survivals. They were rolled down a slope--a magical imitative act, symbolising and aiding the course of the sun. The cake had also a divinatory character. If it broke on reaching the foot of the slope this indicated the approaching death of its owner. In another custom in Perths.h.i.+re, part of a cake was thrown over the shoulder with the words, "This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; this to thee, O fox, preserve thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded crow; this to thee, O eagle." Here there is an appeal to beneficial and noxious powers, whether this was the original intention of the rite.[926] But if the cakes were made of the last sheaf, they were probably at one time eaten sacramentally, their sacrificial use emerging later.

The bonfire was a sun-charm, representing and a.s.sisting the sun.

Rain-charms were also used at Beltane. Sacred wells were visited and the ceremony performed with their waters, these perhaps being sprinkled over the tree or the fields to promote a copious rainfall for the benefit of vegetation. The use of such rites at Beltane and at other festivals may have given rise to the belief that wells were especially efficacious then for purposes of healing. The custom of rolling in the gra.s.s to benefit by May dew was probably connected with magical rites in which moisture played an important part.[927]

The idea that the powers of growth had successfully combated those of blight may have been ritually represented. This is suggested by the mimic combats of Summer and Winter at this time, to which reference has already been made. Again, the May king and queen represent earlier personages who were regarded as embodying the spirits of vegetation and fertility at this festival, and whose marriage or union magically a.s.sisted growth and fertility, as in numerous examples of this ritual marriage elsewhere.[928] It may be a.s.sumed that a considerable amount of s.e.xual licence also took place with the same magical purpose. Sacred marriage and festival orgy were an appeal to the forces of nature to complete their beneficial work, as well as a magical aid to them in that work. a.n.a.logy leads to the supposition that the king of the May was originally a priest-king, the incarnation of the spirit of vegetation.

He or his surrogate was slain, while his bodily force was unabated, in order that it might be pa.s.sed on undiminished to his successor. But the persistent place given to the May queen rather than to the king suggests the earlier prominence of women and of female spirits of fertility or of a great Mother-G.o.ddess in such rites. It is also significant that in the Perths.h.i.+re ritual the man chosen was still called the _Beltane carlane_ or _cailleach_ ("old woman"). And if, as Professor Pearson maintains, witch orgies are survivals of old s.e.x-festivals, then the popular belief in the activity of witches on Beltane eve, also shows that the festival had once been mainly one in which women took part. Such orgies often took place on hills which had been the sites of a cult in former times.[929]

MIDSUMMER.

The ritual of the Midsummer festival did not materially differ from that of Beltane, and as folk-survivals show, it was practised not only by the Celts, but by many other European peoples. It was, in fact, a primitive nature festival such as would readily be observed by all under similar psychic conditions and in like surroundings. A bonfire was again the central rite of this festival, the communal nature of which is seen in the fact that all must contribute materials to it. In local survivals, mayor and priest, representing the earlier local chief and priest, were present, while a service in church preceded the procession to the scene of the bonfire. Dancing sunwise round the fire to the accompaniment of songs which probably took the place of hymns or tunes in honour of the Sun-G.o.d, commonly occurred, and by imitating the sun's action, may have been intended to make it more powerful. The livelier the dance the better would be the harvest.[930] As the fire represented the sun, it possessed the purifying and invigorating powers of the sun; hence leaping through the fire preserved from disease, brought prosperity, or removed barrenness. Hence also cattle were driven through the fire. But if any one stumbled as he leaped, ill-luck was supposed to follow him.

He was devoted to the _fadets_ or spirits,[931] and perhaps, like the "devoted" Beltane victim, he may formerly have been sacrificed. Animal sacrifices are certainly found in many survivals, the victims being often placed in osier baskets and thrown into the fire. In other districts great human effigies of osier were carried in procession and burned.[932]

The connection of such sacrifices with the periodical slaying of a representative of the vegetation-spirit has been maintained by Mannhardt and Dr. Frazer.[933] As has been seen, periodic sacrifices for the fertility of the land are mentioned by Caesar, Strabo, and Diodorus, human victims and animals being enclosed in an osier image and burned.[934] These images survive in the osier effigies just referred to, while they may also be connected with the custom of decking the human representatives of the spirit of vegetation in greenery. The holocausts may be regarded as extensions of the earlier custom of slaying one victim, the incarnation of a vegetation-spirit. This slaying was gradually regarded as sacrificial, but as the beneficial effect of the sacrifice on growth was still believed in, it would naturally be thought that still better effects would be produced if many victims were offered. The victims were burned in a fire representing the sun, and vegetation was thus doubly benefited, by the victims and by the sun-G.o.d.

The oldest conception of the vegetation-spirit was that of a tree-spirit which had power over rain, suns.h.i.+ne, and every species of fruitfulness.

For this reason a tree had a prominent place both in the Beltane and Midsummer feasts. It was carried in procession, imparting its benefits to each house or field. Branches of it were attached to each house for the same purpose. It was then burned, or it was set up to procure benefits to vegetation during the year and burned at the next Midsummer festival.[935] The sacred tree was probably an oak, and, as has been seen, the mistletoe rite probably took place on Midsummer eve, as a preliminary to cutting down the sacred tree and in order to secure the life or soul of the tree, which must first be secured before the tree could be cut down. The life of the tree was in the mistletoe, still alive in winter when the tree itself seemed to be dead. Such beliefs as this concerning the detachable soul or life survive in _Marchen_, and are still alive among savages.[936]

Folk-survivals show that a human or an animal representative of the vegetation-spirit, brought into connection with the tree, was also slain or burned along with the tree.[937] Thus the cutting of the mistletoe would be regarded as a preliminary to the slaying of the human victim, who, like the tree, was the representative of the spirit of vegetation.

The bonfire representing the sun, and the victims, like the tree, representing the spirit of vegetation, it is obvious why the fire had healing and fertilising powers, and why its ashes and the ashes or the flesh of the victims possessed the same powers. Brands from the fire were carried through the fields or villages, as the tree had been, or placed on the fields or in houses, where they were carefully preserved for a year. All this aided growth and prosperity, just as the smoke of the fire, drifting over the fields, produced fertility. Ashes from the fire, and probably the calcined bones or even the flesh of the victims, were scattered on the fields or preserved and mixed with the seed corn.

Again, part of the flesh may have been eaten sacramentally, since, as has been seen, Pliny refers to the belief of the Celts in the eating of human flesh as most wholesome.

In the Stone Age, as with many savages, a circle typified the sun, and as soon as the wheel was invented its rolling motion at once suggested that of the sun. In the _Edda_ the sun is "the beautiful, the s.h.i.+ning wheel," and similar expressions occur in the _Vedas_. Among the Celts the wheel of the sun was a favourite piece of symbolism, and this is seen in various customs at the Midsummer festival. A burning wheel was rolled down a slope or trundled through the fields, or burning brands were whirled round so as to give the impression of a fiery wheel. The intention was primarily to imitate the course of the sun through the heavens, and so, on the principle of imitative magic, to strengthen it.

But also, as the wheel was rolled through the fields, so it was hoped that the direct beneficial action of the sun upon them would follow.

Similar rites might be performed not only at Midsummer, but at other times, to procure blessing or to ward off evil, e.g. carrying fire round houses or fields or cattle or round a child _deiseil_ or sunwise,[938]

and, by a further extension of thought, the blazing wheel, or the remains of the burning brands thrown to the winds, had also the effect of carrying off acc.u.mulated evils.[939]

Beltane and Midsummer thus appear as twin halves of a spring or early summer festival, the intention of which was to promote fertility and health. This was done by slaying the spirit of vegetation in his representative--tree, animal, or man. His death quickened the energies of earth and man. The fire also magically a.s.sisted the course of the sun. Survival of the ancient rites are or were recently found in all Celtic regions, and have been constantly combated by the Church. But though they were continued, their true meaning was forgotten, and they were mainly performed for luck or out of sheer conservatism. Sometimes a Christian aspect was given to them, e.g. by connecting the fires with S.

John, or by a.s.sociating the rites with the service of the Church, or by the clergy being present at them. But their true nature was still evident as acts of pagan wors.h.i.+p and magic which no veneer of Christianity could ever quite conceal.[940]

LUGNASAD.

The 1st of August, coming midway between Beltane and Samhain, was an important festival among the Celts. In Christian times the day became Lammas, but its name still survives in Irish as Lugnasad, in Gaelic as Lunasdal or Lunasduinn, and in Manx as Laa Luanys, and it is still observed as a fair or feast in many districts. Formerly a.s.semblies at convenient centres were held on this day, not only for religious purposes, but for commerce and pleasure, both of these being of course saturated with religion. "All Ireland" met at Taillti, just as "all Gaul" met at Lugudunum, "Lug's town," or Lyons, in honour of Augustus, though the feast there had formerly been in honour of the G.o.d Lugus.[941] The festival was here Romanised, as it was also in Britain, where its name appears as _Goel-aoust_, _Gul-austus_, and _Gwyl Awst_, now the "August feast," but formerly the "feast of Augustus," the name having replaced one corresponding to Lugnasad.[942]

Cormac explains the name Lugnasad as a festival of Lugh mac Ethlenn, celebrated by him in the beginning of autumn, and the _Rennes Dindsenchas_ accounts for its origin by saying that Lug's foster-mother, Tailtiu, having died on the Calends of August, he directed an a.s.sembly for lamentation to be held annually on that day at her tomb.[943] Lug is thus the founder of his own festival, for that it was his, and not Tailtiu's, is clear from the fact that his name is attached to it. As Lammas was a Christian harvest thanksgiving, so also was Lugnasad a pagan harvest feast, part of the ritual of which pa.s.sed over to Samhain.

The people made glad before the sun-G.o.d--Lug perhaps having that character--who had a.s.sisted them in the growth of the things on which their lives depended. Marriages were also arranged at this feast, probably because men had now more leisure and more means for entering upon matrimony. Possibly promiscuous love-making also occurred as a result of the festival gladness, agricultural districts being still notoriously immoral. Some evidence points to the connection of the feast with Lug's marriage, though this has been allegorised into his wedding the "sovereignty of Erin." Perhaps we have here a hint of the rite of the sacred marriage, for the purpose of magically fertilising the fields against next year's sowing.

Due observance of the feast produced abundance of corn, fruit, milk, and fish. Probably the ritual observed included the preservation of the last sheaf as representing the corn-spirit, giving some of it to the cattle to strengthen them, and mingling it with next year's corn to impart to it the power of the corn-spirit. It may also have included the slaying of an animal or human incarnation of the corn-spirit, whose flesh and blood quickened the soil and so produced abundance next year, or, when partaken of by the wors.h.i.+ppers, brought blessings to them. To neglect such rites, abundant instances of which exist in folk-custom, would be held to result in scarcity. This would also explain, as already suggested, why the festival was a.s.sociated with the death of Tailtiu or of Carman. The euhemerised queen-G.o.ddess Tailtiu and the woman Carman had once been corn-G.o.ddesses, evolved from more primitive corn-spirits, and slain at the feast in their female representatives. The story of their death and burial at the festival was a dim memory of this ancient rite, and since the festival was also connected with the sun-G.o.d Lug, it was easy to bring him into relations.h.i.+p with the earlier G.o.ddess.

Elsewhere the festival, in its memorial aspect, was a.s.sociated with a king, probably because male victims had come to be representatives of a corn-G.o.d who had taken the place of the G.o.ddess.

Some of the ritual of these festivals is ill.u.s.trated by scattered notices in cla.s.sical writers, and on the whole they support our theory that the festivals originated in a female cult of spirits or G.o.ddesses of fertility. Strabo speaks of sacrifices offered to Demeter and Kore, according to the ritual followed at Samothrace, in an island near Britain, i.e. to native G.o.ddesses equated with them. He also describes the ritual of the Namnite women on an island in the Loire. They are called Bacchantes because they conciliated Bacchus with mysteries and sacrifices; in other words, they observed an orgiastic cult of a G.o.d equated with Bacchus. No man must set foot on the island, but the women left it once a year for intercourse with the other s.e.x. Once a year the temple of the G.o.d was unroofed, and roofed again before sunset. If any woman dropped her load of materials (and it was said this always happened), she was torn in pieces and her limbs carried round the temple.[944] Dionysius Periegetes says the women were crowned with ivy, and celebrated their mysteries by night in honour of Earth and Proserpine with great clamour.[945] Pliny also makes a reference to British rites in which nude women and girls took part, their bodies stained with woad.[946]

At a later time, S. Gregory of Tours speaks of the image of a G.o.ddess Berecynthia drawn on a litter through the streets, fields, and vineyards of Augustodunum on the days of her festival, or when the fields were threatened with scarcity. The people danced and sang before it. The image was covered with a white veil.[947] Berecynthia has been conjectured by Professor Anwyl to be the G.o.ddess Brigindu, wors.h.i.+pped at Valnay.[948]

These rites were all directed towards divinities of fertility. But in harvest customs in Celtic Scotland and elsewhere two sheaves of corn were called respectively the Old Woman and the Maiden, the corn-spirit of the past year and that of the year to come, and corresponding to Demeter and Kore in early Greek agricultural ritual. As in Greece, so among the Celts, the primitive corn-spirits had probably become more individualised G.o.ddesses with an elaborate cult, observed on an island or at other sacred spots. The cult probably varied here and there, and that of a G.o.d of fertility may have taken the place of the cult of G.o.ddesses. A G.o.d was wors.h.i.+pped by the Namnite women, according to Strabo, G.o.ddesses according to Dionysius. The mangled victim was probably regarded as representative of a divinity, and perhaps part of the flesh was mixed with the seed-corn, like the grain of the Maiden sheaf, or buried in the earth. This rite is common among savages, and its presence in old European ritual is attested by survivals. That these rites were tabu to men probably points to the fact that they were examples of an older general custom, in which all such rites were in the hands of women who cultivated the earth, and who were the natural priestesses of G.o.ddesses of growth and fertility, of vegetation and the growing corn. Another example is found in the legend and procession of G.o.diva at Coventry--the survival of a pagan cult from which men were excluded.[949]

Pliny speaks of the nudity of the women engaged in the cult. Nudity is an essential part of all primitive agricultural rites, and painting the body is also a widespread ritual act. Dressing with leaves or green stuff, as among the Namnite women, and often with the intention of personating the spirit of vegetation, is also customary. By unveiling the body, and especially the s.e.xual organs, women more effectually represented the G.o.ddess of fertility, and more effectually as her representatives, or through their own powers, magically conveyed fertility to the fields. Nakedness thus became a powerful magico-religious symbol, and it is found as part of the ritual for producing rain.[950]

There is thus abundant evidence of the cult of fertility, vegetation, and corn-spirits, who tended to become divinities, male or female. Here and there, through conservatism, the cult remained in the hands of women, but more generally it had become a ritual in which both men and women took part--that of the great agricultural festivals. Where a divinity had taken the place of the vaguer spirits, her image, like that of Berecynthia, was used in the ritual, but the image was probably the successor of the tree which embodied the vegetation-spirit, and was carried through the fields to fertilise them. Similar processions of images, often accompanied by a ritual was.h.i.+ng of the image in order to invigorate the divinity, or, as in the similar May-day custom, to produce rain, are found in the Teutonic cult of Nerthus, the Phrygian of Cybele, the Hindu of Bhavani, and the Roman ritual of the Bona Dea. The image of Berecynthia was thus probably washed also. Was.h.i.+ng the images of saints, usually to produce rain, has sometimes taken the place of the was.h.i.+ng of a divine image, and similarly the relics of a saint are carried through a field, as was the tree or image. The community at Iona perambulated a newly sown field with S. Columba's relics in time of drought, and shook his tunic three times in the air, and were rewarded by a plentiful rain, and later, by a bounteous harvest.[951]

Many of these local cults were pre-Celtic, but we need not therefore suppose that the Celts, or the Aryans as a whole, had no such cults.[952] The Aryans everywhere adopted local cults, but this they would not have done if, as is supposed, they had themselves outgrown them. The cults were local, but the Celts had similar local cults, and easily accepted those of the people they conquered. We cannot explain the persistence of such primitive cults as lie behind the great Celtic festivals, both in cla.s.sical times and over the whole area of Europe among the peasantry, by referring them solely to a pre-Aryan folk. They were as much Aryan as pre-Aryan. They belong to those unchanging strata of religion which have so largely supplied the soil in which its later and more spiritual growths have flourished. And among these they still emerge, unchanged and unchanging, like the gaunt outcrops of some ancient rock formation amid rich vegetation and fragrant flowers.

FOOTNOTES:

[889] Pliny, xvi. 45; Caesar, vi. 18. See my article "Calendar (Celtic)"

in Hastings' _Encyclopaedia of Rel. and Ethics_, iii. 78 f., for a full discussion of the problems involved.

[890] O'Donovan, _Book of Rights_, Intro. lii f.

[891] O'Donovan, li.; Bertrand, 105; Keating, 300.

[892] Samhain may mean "summer-end," from _sam_, "summer," and _fuin_, "sunset" or "end," but Dr. Stokes (_US_ 293) makes _samani_- mean "a.s.sembly," i.e. the gathering of the people to keep the feast.

[893] Keating, 125, 300.

[894] See MacBain, _CM_ ix. 328.