The Religion of the Ancient Celts Part 44

[1287] See pp. 103, 117, _supra_.

[1288] For the use of a vessel in ritual as a symbol of deity, see Crooke, _Folk-Lore_, viii. 351 f.

[1289] Diod. Sic. v. 28; Athen. iv. 34; Joyce, _SH_ ii. 124; _Antient Laws of Ireland_, iv. 327. The cauldrons of Irish houses are said in the texts to be inexhaustible (cf. _RC_ xxiii. 397).

[1290] Strabo, vii. 2. 1; Lucan, Usener's ed., p. 32; _IT_ iii. 210; _Antient Laws of Ireland_, i. 195 f.

[1291] Curtin, _HTI_ 249, 262.

[1292] See Villemarque, _Contes Pop. des anciens Bretons_, Paris, 1842; Rh[^y]s, _AL_; and especially Nutt, _Legend of the Holy Grail_, 1888.

[1293] "Adventures of Nera," _RC_ x. 226; _RC_ xvi. 62, 64.

[1294] P. 106, _supra_.

[1295] P. 107, _supra_.

[1296] For parallel myths see _Rig-Veda_, i. 53. 2; Campbell, _Travels in South Africa_, i. 306; Johnston, _Uganda Protectorate_, ii. 704; Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak_, i. 307; and cf. the myth of Prometheus.

[1297] This is found in the stories of Bran, Maelduin, Connla, in Fian tales (O'Grady, ii. 228, 238), in the "Children of Tuirenn," and in Gaelic _Marchen_.

[1298] Martin, 277; Sebillot, ii. 76.

[1299] Burton, _Thousand Nights and a Night_, x. 239; Chamberlain, _Aino Folk-Tales_, 38; _L'Anthropologie_, v. 507; Maspero, _Hist. anc. des peuples de l'Orient_, i. 183. The l.u.s.t of the women of these islands is fatal to their lovers.

[1300] An island near New Guinea is called "the land of women." On it men are allowed to land temporarily, but only the female offspring of the women are allowed to survive (_L' Anthrop._ v. 507). The Indians of Florida had a tradition of an island in a lake inhabited by the fairest women (Chateaubriand, _Autob._ 1824, ii. 24), and Fijian mythology knows of an Elysian island of G.o.ddesses, near the land of the G.o.ds, to which a few favoured mortals are admitted (Williams, _Fiji_, i. 114).

[1301] P. 274, _supra_. Islands may have been regarded as sacred because of such cults, as the folk-lore reported by Plutarch suggests (p. 343, _supra_). Celtic saints retained the veneration for islands, and loved to dwell on them, and the idea survives in folk-belief. Cf. the veneration of Lewismen for the Flannan islands.

[1302] Gir. Camb. _Itin. Camb._ i. 8.

[1303] Translations of some of these _Voyages_ by Stokes are given in _RC_, vols. ix. x. and xiv. See also Zimmer, "Brendan's Meerfahrt,"

_Zeits. fur Deut. Alt._ x.x.xiii.; cf. Nutt-Meyer, ch. 4, 8.

[1304] _RC_ iv. 243.