The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries

from Tir-na-nog for the uplifting of their race. Perhaps to many a young spirit standing

the Tuatha De Danann-King Mongan's re-birth-Etain's birth-Dermot's pre-existence-Tuan's re-birth-Re-birth among Brythons-Arthur as a reincarnate hero-Non-Celtic par

with the

efully perhaps than any other Celtic folk-lorist, has said of it:-'In Greek mythology as in Irish, the conception of re-birth proves to be a dominant factor of the same religious system in which Elysium is likewise an essential feature.' Death, as many i

vey of the Re-

were familiar with the doctrine, as implied in the Wisdom of Solomon (viii. 19, 20), and in the writings of Philo. It was one of the teachings in the Schools of Alexandria, and thus directly shaped the thoughts of some of the early Church Fathers-for example, Tertullian of Carthage (circa A. D. 160-240), and Origen of Alexandria (circa A. D. 185-254). It is of co

regarded as Christian in view of the declaration by Jesus Christ that John the Baptist was Elias (or Elijah), the old Jewish prophet, come again:-'And if ye are willing to receive it (or him), this (John the Baptist) is Elijah, which is to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.'[361] Tertullian concludes, and modern Christian theologians frequently echo him (upon comparing Malachi iv. 5), that all the New Testament writers mean to convey is that John the Baptist possessed or acted in 'the spirit and power' of Elias, but was not actually a reincarnation of Elias, since he did not

trary to Tertullian's argument, but in accord with what we may assume Origen's view would have been) that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elias.[366] The same work further exp

ised more than seventy sects connected with the primitive Church, also promulgated the re-birth doctrine.[368] Along with the condemnation of the Gnostics and Manichaeans as heretical, the doctrine of re-birth was likewise condemned by various ecclesiastical bodies and councils. This was the declaration by the Council of Constantinople in 553:-'Whosoever shall support the mythical doctrine of the pre-existence of the Soul, and the consequent wonderful opinion o

be called a renaissance of the ancient doctrine in Europe and America-especially in England, Germany, France, and the United States-through various philosophical or religious societies; some of them founding their teachings and literature on the ancient and mediaeval mystical philosophers, while others stand as the representatives in the West of the mystical schools of modern India, which, like modern Druidism, claim to have existed from what we call prehistoric times.[370]

h explains only the purely physical evolution of the body which man inhabits as an inheritance from the brute kingdom-and also besides Darwinism, a comprehensive theory of man's own evolution as a spiritual being both apart from and in a physical body, on his road to the

to the B

animate save God, and God only can traverse it; the circle of Abred (the circle of Re-birth), where the dead is stronger than the living, and where every principal existence is derived from the dead, and man has traversed it; and the circle of Gwynvyd (the circle of the white, i. e. the circle of Perfection), where the living is stronger than the dead, and where every principal existence is derived from the living and life, that is, from God, and man shall traverse it; nor will man attain to perf

t entered that of man. Humanity is a state of liberty, where man can attach himself to either good or evil, as he pleases'.[375] Once in the human kingdom the soul begins a second period of growth altogether different from that preceding-a period of growth toward divinity; and with this, in our study, we are chiefly concerned. It seems clear that the circle of Gwynvyd finds its parallel in the Nirvana of Buddhism, being, like it, a state of absolute knowledge and felicity in which man becomes a divine being, a veritable god.[376] We see in all this the intimate rel

ncient and Mod

the Pharsalia,[380] addressing the Druids on their doctrine of re-birth says:-'If you know what you sing, death is the centre of a long life.' And again in the same passage he observes:-'Happy the folk upon whom the Bear looks down, happy in this error, whom of fears the greatest moves not, the dread of death. Hence their warrior's heart hurls them against the steel, hence their ready welcome of death, and the thought that it were a coward's part to grudge a life sure of its return.'[38

n of the Tua

all the principal personages that they are looked upon simply as divine beings reborn on the human plane of life. These indications are mysterious, and most of the tales which deal with them show signs of having been altered, perhaps intentionally, by the Christian transcribers. The doctrine of re-birth was naturally not one acceptable to them.... The goddess Etain becomes the mortal wife of a king of Ireland.... Conchobhar, moreover, is spoken of as a terrestrial god;[384] and Dechtire, his sister, and the mother of Cúchulainn, is called a goddess.[385] In the case of Cúchulainn himself, it is distinctly noted that he is the avatar of Lugh lamhfada (long-hand), the sun-deity[386] of the earliest cycle. Lugh appears to Dechtire, the mother of Cúchulainn, and tells her that he himself is her little child, i. e. that the child is a reincarnation of himself; and Cúchulainn, when inquired of as to his birth, points proudly to his de

and they are probably but remnants of an extensive re-birth literature like that of India-have been more or less altered. Yet to these scholarly scribes of the early monastic schools, who kept alive the sacred fire of learning while their own country was being plundered

Story Concern

ween them was as to the place of the death of Fothad Airgdech, a king of Ireland who was killed by Cailte, one of the warriors of Find, in a battle whose date is fixed by the Four Masters in A. D. 285.[392] Forgoll pretended that Fothad had been killed at Duffry, in Leinster, and Mongan asserted that it was on the river Larne (anciently Ollarba) in Co

the Otherworld to bear testimony to the truthfulness of the king and to confound the audacious presumptions of the poet Forgoll. It was evening when he reached the palace. The king Mongan was seated

he poet. 'What you say does not well become you,' responded Cailte in turn, 'for I will prove what I say.' And straightway Cailte revealed this strange secret: that he had

gh his body, and the iron point, detaching itself from the staff, became fixed in the earth on the other side of Fothad. Behold here [in my hand] the shaft of that spear. There will be found the bare rock from the top of which I let fly my weapon. There will be found a little further to the east the iron point sunken in the earth. There will be found again a little further, always to the e

ne had known was revealed-he was Find re-born[393]; and Cailte, his old pupil and warrior-companion, had come from the land of the dead to aid him[393]:-'It was Cailte, Find's foster-son, that had come to them. Mongan, however, was Find, though he would not let it be told.'[393] But not only was Mongan an Irish king, he was also a god,

ge.' And after Mongan has become Ulster's high king, Manannan comes to him to rouse him out of human slothfulness to a consciousness of his divine nature and mission, and of the need of action: Mongan and his wife were frittering away their time playing a game, when they beheld a dark black-tufted little cleric standing at the door-post, who sai

offspring of Manannan by the woman of Line-mag-quite after the theory of the Christian Incarnation-is described as 'a fair man in a body of white clay'. This and what follows in the introductory quatrain show how early Celtic doctrines correspond to or else were originated by those of the Christians. And the transcriber seeing the parallels, glossed and alt

alvation

ng who has

w will com

ng God, He

he on whom t

me to t

o journey t

oman in

oninnan, th

iot in the sh

··

the company of e

darling of ev

own secrets-a c

d, without

which is not transmigration into animal forms, but

throughou

years in fa

·

, the so

s father,

is d

r fairies) will take him und

g where there i

ain of the Tuat

great king among the Sidhe people) was driven out of Fairyland by the jealousy of her husband's other wife, and how after being wafted about on the winds of this world she fell invisibly into the drinking-cup of the wife of Etar of Inber Cichmaine, who was an Ulster ch

ss; and as suddenly disappeared, after he had sung to her a wonderful song designed

in here t

children is

as gulped i

ife in a he

be known that Midir has struck off the head of his ot

: 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

id 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 kiss

xistence

u 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 o

rth o

then, after two hundred and twenty years, was re-born as the son of Cairell. This story in its oldest form is pres

among the

doctrine prevailed, though we have fewer clear records of it. Of the Brythonic Re-b

sixteenth century, though the transformation incidents are presupposed in the Book of Taliessin, a thirteenth-century manuscript.[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 voya

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

as a Reinc

urn 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 thi

ltic P

ife 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

gods and men.[413] The celebrated philosophical poem known as the Bhagavadg?ta also asserts Krishna's descent from the gods; 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

ready 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 surpassing 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 Grass without doubt acce

-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 wo

Among Mod

Fairy-Faith, still survives; thus further proving that Celtic tradition is an unbroken thing from times prehistoric until to-day.

Ire

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

condition with the vigour and good health of the latter, and attributes the misfortune which is upon himse

uar ata m

inn agus ge

?oc na

g faire do

old is

rain and

ying fo

hing your [e

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 gen

ine 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

n 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 Irel

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

Sco

lands more thoroughly than any other living Scotsman, informs me that apparently there was at one time in the Highlands a definite belief in t

Isle

ng 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. T

-birth) of spirits. I can't explain it. A certain Manxman I knew used to talk about the transmigratio

a notion that he would be back here again at the Resurrection to claim his land.' This undoubtedly shows how the Christian doctrine

W

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

ne, said he remembers, while in Patagonia, having discussed Druidism with a friend there, the late John Jones, origina

d 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-b

lls 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 bod

med Thomas Williams, a dyer by trade, nearly believed in it, and Sh?n 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 est

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 Goddess 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

ime], 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 God.' At this point I asked if there was loss of individuality in Circle Three, and Mr. Williams replied:-'No, there is not

Cor

hat the Troll who inhabited it could embody the person who called him up in any state in which that person had existed during a former age. You had only to name the age or period, and you could live your past life therein over again. My nurse, Betty Grancan, and an old miner named William Edwards, both believed in re-b

Bri

e as men and women; and he has told me that this belief exists also in other regions of the Morbihan. And I myself found there in this Carnac country of which M. Le Rouzic speaks, that the doc

stable that the belief in the reincarnation of spirits is general in our country; and it

iven the impression that the ancient Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth is a thoroughly familiar one to him and to many Bretons about the Carnac district. As we conversed about the doctrine, he said emphatically, 'C'est la vérité' (It is the truth); and in illustration told the following anecdotes:-'A woman in a ceme

the floating images and you discern the hollow sounds of the people of the manes; you live, literally, among them. What am I saying? Under the form and appearance of a man of to-day, you are in reality one of them, ascended to the day and reincarnated.' Again, speaking of the Alignements of Menec, Professor Le Braz adds concerning his friend:-'You have been one of the prie

on of the Celtic D

latonic, and similar orientally-derived philosophies; while the other arises out of primitive Christianity, wherein, as literary and historical evidence suggests, re-birth may have been an equally important doctrine; or, at all events, there was a decided tenden

rsity for all Europe, had good opportunities for knowing much about the earliest traditions of Christianity, and they, with their own half-pagan instincts, would have given approval to such a doctrine without consulting Rome, just as Church Fathers like Tertullian condemned it on their own personal authority and Origen believed it. Further, if we hold in mind that the doctrine of the Incarnation even now inculcates that the Son pre-existed and united Himself with a human soul in the act of conception, and that it may originally and by some Irish saints have been thought of as applying to all mankind in a more humble and less divine way, we seem to see in the Mongan re-birth story, which Christian transcribers have glossed, evidently with such ideas in mind, a proof that on this doctrinal point Christian and Celtic beliefs coalesced.[42

that available facts of comparative religion, philosophy, and myth, indicate clearly a prehistoric epoch when there was a common ancestral stock for the Mediterranean and pan-Celtic cultures. This may have had its beginnings in the Danube country, or in North Europe, as many authorities in ethnology now hold, or, as others are beginning to hold, in the lost Atlantis-the most probable home of the dark pre-Celtic peoples of Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland, Britain, Southern and Western Europe, and North Africa, who with the Aryans are the joint ancestors of the modern Celts. Both branches of this common Celtic ancestral stock held the re-birth doctrine. And at least from their Aryan ancestors it seems to have been inherited by the Celts of history. To attempt a hypothetical proof that this race or that race, Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, or Celtic, as the case may be, is alone the o

TIO

, SPIRITS, FAIRI