The Religion of the Ancient Celts eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 445 pages of information about The Religion of the Ancient Celts.

The Religion of the Ancient Celts eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 445 pages of information about The Religion of the Ancient Celts.

[421] Guest, iii. 356 f.

[422] Skene, i. 275, 296.

[423] Ibid. i. 498, 500.

[424] See p. 382, infra.

[425] Mon.  Hist.  Brit. i. 698, ii.; Thomas, Revue de l’hist. des Religions, xxxviii. 339.

[426] Skene, i. 263, 274-276, 278, 281-282, 286-287.  His “chair” bestows immortal youth and freedom from sickness.

[427] Skene, i. 264, 376 f., 309, 532.  See p. 356, infra.

[428] See pp. 350-1, infra.  Fionn and Taliesin are examples of the Maerchen formula of a hero expelled and brought back to honour, Nutt-Meyer, ii. 88.

[429] Loth, i. 209, ii. 238; Skene, ii. 459.

[430] Nennius, ch. 50, 79.

[431] Anwyl, ZCP i. 293.

[432] Geoffrey, viii. 9-xi. 3.

[433] Nutt-Meyer, ii. 22 f.

[434] See p. 381, infra.

[435] Loth, ii. 232, 245.

[436] Rh[^y]s, AL, 39 f.  Others derive the name from arto-s, “bear.”  MacBain, 357.

[437] Loth. ii. 247; Skene, ii. 459.

[438] Geoffrey, vi. 17-19, vii. viii. 1, 10-12, 19.  In a poem (Skene, i. 478), Myrddin is called “the man who speaks from the grave”—­a conception familiar to the Celts, who thought of the dead as living on in the grave.  See p. 340, infra.

[439] Rh[^y]s, HL, 154 f., 158-159, 194.

[440] Geoffrey, ix. 12, etc.

[441] Skene, ii. 51.

[442] Loth. i. 225; cf. p. 131, infra.  From this description Elton supposes Kei to have been a god of fire.

[443] Myv.  Arch. i. 175; Loth, i. 269.  Rh[^y]s, AL 59, thinks Merlin may have been Guinevere’s ravisher.

[444] Holder, i. 414.

[445] Loth i. 250, 260 f., 280, ii. 215, 244.

[446] Skene, i. 363, ii. 406; Myv.  Arch. i. 78.

[447] Hu Gadarn is mentioned in the Triads as a leader of the Cymry from the east and their teacher in ploughing.  He divided them into clans, and invented music and song.  The monster avanc was drawn by him from the lake which had burst and caused the flood (see p. 231, infra).  Perhaps Hu is an old culture-god of some tribes, but the Triads referring to him are of late date (Loth, ii. 271, 289, 290-291, 298-299).  For the ridiculous Neo-Druidic speculations based on Hu, see Davies, Celtic Researches and Mythology and Rites of the Druids.

Gurgiunt, son of Belinus, in Geoffrey, iii. 11, may be the French legendary Gargantua, perhaps an old god.  See the works of Sebillot and Gaidoz on Gargantua.

[448] Loth, i. 270.

[449] Dio Cassius, lxii. 6.

[450] Solinus, xxii. 10.  See p. 2, supra.

[451] Ptol. ii. 3. 2.

[452] For all these see Holder, s.v.

CHAPTER VII.

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