Ancient Man in Britain

Tacitus, Agricola, Chap. XII.

90

Agricola, Chap. XXI.

91

Races of Europe, p. 436.

92

The Ancient Egyptians, p. 58.

93

Englished "Damnonians" (Chapter IX).

94

Tacitus says that the Brigantes were in point of numbers the most considerable folk in Britain (Agricola, Chapter XVII).

95

Evidently Cuchullin and other heroes of the "Red Branch" in Ireland were descended from peoples who had migrated into Ireland from Britain. Their warriors in the old manuscript tales receive their higher military training in Alba. It is unlikely they would have been trained in a colony.

96

Ancient sacred stones with horses depicted on them survive in Scotland. In Harris one horse-stone remains in an olf church tower.

97

The Picts, Inverness, 1921 (lecture delivered to the Gaelic Society of Inverness and reprinted from The Inverness Courier).

98

The fact that in the Scottish Lowlands the fairies were sometimes called "Pechts" has been made much of by those who contend that the prototypes of the fairies were the original inhabitants of Western Europe. This theory ignores the well-established custom of giving human names to supernatural beings. In Scotland the hill-giants (Fomorians) have been re-named after Arthur (as in Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh), Patrick (Inverness), Wallace (Eildon Hills), Samson (Ben Ledi), &c. In like manner fairies were referred to as Pechts. The Irish evidence is of similar character. The Danann deities were consigned to fairyland. Donald Gorm, a West Highland chief, gave his name to an Irish fairy. Fairyland was the old Paradise. Arthur, Thomas the Rhymer, Finn-mac-Coul, &c., became "fairy-men" after death. A good deal of confusion has been caused by mistranslating the Scottish Gaelic word sith (Irish sidhe) as "fairy". The word sith (pronounced shee) means anything unearthly or supernatural, and the "peace" of supernatural life—of death after life, as well as the silence of the movements of supernatural beings. The cuckoo was supposed to dwell for a part of the year in the underworld, and was called eun sith ("supernatural bird"). Mysterious epidemics were sith diseases. There were sith (supernatural) dogs, cats, mice, cows, &c., as well as sith men and sith women.

99

Rough Stone Monuments, pp. 82 et seq.

100

De Bello Gallico, Book III, Chapter II.

101

Manners of the Germans, Chapter XLV. The boar was the son of a sow-goddess. Demeter had originally a sow form.

102

Scandinavian Britain (London, 1908), pp. 61-3.

103

Rhys, Celtic Britain (4th ed.), pp. 152, 317.

104

O'Curry, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Vol. III, p. 136.

105

Agricola, Chap. XI.

106

"The rule is", writes Beddoe in this connection (The Anthropological History of Europe, p. 53), "that an anthropological type is never wholly dispossessed or extirpated".

107

The Anthropological History of Europe (new edition, Paisley, 1912), p. 50.

108

Cæsar (De Bello Gallico, VI, XIV, 4) says the Druids believed the soul passed from one individual to another.

109

A Spaniard of the first century a.d.

110

Book V. Chap. XXVIII.

111

Pliny (Book XXX) says Britain seems to have taught Druidism to the Persians. Siret's view, given in the concluding part of this chapter, that Druidism was of Eastern origin, is of special interest in this connection.

112

Celtic Religion, p. 62.

113

Avalon, Emain Ablach, &c.

114

The south was on the right and signified heaven, while the north was on the left and signified hell.

115

Bacon wrote: "Mistletoe groweth chiefly upon crab trees, apple trees, sometimes upon hazels, and rarely upon oaks; the mistletoe whereof is counted very medicinal. It is evergreen in winter and summer, and beareth a white glistening berry; and it is a plant utterly differing from the plant on which it groweth."

116

The Annals of Tacitus, XIV, 30. The theory that mediæval witches were the priestesses of a secret cult that perpetuated pre-Roman British religion is not supported by Gaelic evidence. The Gaelic "witches" had no meetings with the devil, and never rode on broomsticks. The Gaelic name for witchcraft is derived from English and is not old.

117

"Every weapon has its demon" is an old Gaelic saying.

118

According to the Dingwall records knowledge of "future events in reference especialle to lyfe and death" was obtained by performing a ceremony in connection with the hollowed stone.

119

L'Anthropologie, 1921. Tome XXX, pp. 235 et seq.

120

"Comb of the honey and milk of the nut" (in Gaelic cir na meala 'is bainne nan cnò) was given as a tonic to weakly children, and is still remembered, the Rev. Kenneth MacLeod, Colonsay, informs me.

121

Standish H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, p. 505.

122

A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland, pp. 100-2 and 367-8.

123

Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, under Soma and Madhu.

124

Joyce, Irish Names of Places, Vol. I, pp. 507-9, Vol. II, pp. 206-7 and 345· Marsh mallows (leamh) appear to have been included among the herbals of the milk-cult as the soma-plant was in India.

125

Revue Celtique, Vol. XIII, p. 75.

126

Warren, Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, p. 67.

127

Henderson's Survivals, p. 218.

128

Rowan-berry wine was greatly favoured. There are Gaelic references to "the wine of the apple (cider)".

129

George Nicholson, Encyclopædia of Horticulture, under "Oak".

130

Curragh is connected with the Latin corium, a hide.

131

Schliemann, Troy and Its Remains, p. 232.

132

Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXI, p. 129.

133

It was because Zeus had been suckled by a sow that the Cretans, as Athenæus records, "will not taste its flesh" (Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, Vol. I, p. 37). In Ireland the dog was taboo to Cuchullin. There is a good deal of Gaelic lore about the sacred cow.

134

L'Anthropologie (1921), pp. 268 et seq.

135

Lady Charlotte Guest, The Mabinogion (Story of "Kilwch and Olwen" and note on "Gwyn the son of Nudd").

136

Also shiubhail e which signifies "he went off" (as when walking).

137

When depicted with star-spangled garments she was the goddess of the starry sky ("Milky Way") like the Egyptian Hathor or Nut.

138

Professor W. J. Watson, Place-names of Ross and Cromarty, pp. 62-3.

139

Dr. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, Vol. I, p. 375.

140

Ibid., Vol. II, p. 378.

141

The two headlands, the "souters" or "sutors", are supposed to have been so called because they were sites of tanneries.

142

The Diamond (Chicago, 1915).

143

Natural History, Book IX. Chap. LIV.

144

Tacitus, Manners of the Germans, Chap. XLV.

145

British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age, pp. 135-6.

146

Natural History, Book XXXVIII, Chapter III.

147

Rhys rejects the view of Gildas that "Cuneglasos" meant "tawny butcher".

148

Herodian, Lib. III, says of the inhabitants of Caledonia, "They mark their bodies with various pictures of all manner of animals".

149

Book I. Chapter I.

150

Pliny, Lib. XXXVI. cap. 34.

151

Ure's History of Rutherglen and Kilbride, p. 219.

152

Joyce, A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland, p. 478.

153

Professor W. J. Watson has drawn my attention to an interesting reference to amber. In the Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. II, p. 18, under "Celtic Inscriptions of France and Italy", Sir John Rhys deals with Vebrumaros, a man's name. The second element in this name is māros (great); the first, uebru, "is perhaps to be explained by reference to the Welsh word gwefr (amber)". Rhys thought the name meant that the man was distinguished for his display of amber "in the adornment of his person". The name had probably a deeper significance. Amber was closely associated with the mother goddess. One of her names may have been "Uebru". She personified amber.

154

Richard of Cirencester (fourteenth century) says the mistletoe increased the number of animals, and was considered as a specific against all poisons (Book I, Chap. IV).

155

Book I. Chap. V.

156

This excellent Gaelic word is current in Scotland. Burns uses it in the line, "O' a' the airts the wind can blaw".

157

Quoted by Sir H. Colt Hoare in Ancient Wiltshire, II. p. 63.

158

Stone circle.

159

In Gaelic deis-iùil means a turning sunwise (by the right or south) from east to west, and tual, i.e. tuath-iùil, a turning by the north or left from east to west. Deis is the genitive of Deas (south, right hand), and Tuath is north or left hand.

160

The following stanza is from the "Book of Ballymote":

Mottled to simpletons; blue to women;Crimson to kings of every host;Green and black to noble laymen;White to clerics of proper devotion.

161

In the Cuchullin Saga Lugh is "a lone man out of the north-eastern quarter". When the cry of another supernatural being is heard, Cuchullin asks from which direction it came. He is told "from the north-west". The goddess Morrigan then appeared.

162

In a Cuchullin saga the hero, addressing the charioteer, says: "Go out, my friend, observe the stars of the air, and ascertain when midnight comes". The Irish Gaelic grien-tairisem is given in an eighth-or ninth-century gloss. It means "sun-standing", and refers to the summer solstice.

163

Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, Lib. I, cap. 30.

164

Of course it does not follow that the reasoning originally took place in these islands. Complex beliefs were imported at an early period. These were localized.

165

In Gaelic these are called "friction fires".

166

According to some, Isis is a rendering of a Libyan name meaning "old wife".

167

This connection can be traced in ancient Egypt. The sun and fire were connected, and the sun originally rose from the primordial waters. The sun's rays were the "tears" of Ra (the sun god). Herbs and trees sprang up where Ra's tears fell.

168

So was a whale. The Latin orca is a Celtic loan-word. Milton uses the Celtic whale-name in the line

The haunt of seals, and orca, and sea-mews' clang.

—Paradise Lost, Book XI, line 835.

169

O'Curry, Manuscript Materials, pp. 426-7.

170

Professor W. J. Watson says in this connection: "The Celtic clerics stepped in to the shoes of the Druids. The people regarded them as superior Druids."

171

In old Gaelic the liver is the seat of life.

172

Mrs. E. Tawse Jollie, Hervetia, S. Melsetter, S. Rhodesia, writes me under October 12, 1918, in answer to my query, that the Boers regard striep muis (striped mice) as a cure for "weakness of the bowel" in children, &c.

173

In a Roman representation of her at Birrens, in Perthshire, she is shown as a winged figure holding a spear in her right hand and a globe in her left. An altar in Chester is dedicated to "De Nymphæ Brig". Her name is enshrined in Bregentz (anciently Brigantium), a town in Switzerland.

174

The beithis lay hidden in arms of the sea and came ashore to devour animals.

175

The Dragon in China and Japan (1913).

176

Trevelyan. Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales, p. 165.

177

W. R. S. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, pp. 117 et seq.

178

Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XXVI (1897). p. 23.

179

Laufer, Jade, p. 310.

180

My Schools and Schoolmasters, Chapter VI.

181

Rev. W. Forsyth, Dornoch, in Folk-lore Journal, VI, 171.

182

It has been suggested that "Dane" stands for "Danann".

183

A text states: "Kindly is she as Bast: terrible is she as Sekhet."

184

The Gaelic word for "witch" comes from English. Gaelic "witch lore" is distinctive, having retained more ancient beliefs than those connected with the orthodox witches.

185

The "fairy" Queen (the queen of enchantment), who carried off Thomas the Rhymer, appeared as a beautiful woman, but was afterwards transformed into an ugly hag. Thomas laments:

How art thou faded thus in the face,That shone before as the sun so bricht(bright).

186

Wm. Cashen, Manx Folk-lore (Douglas, 1912), p. 48.

187

King James VI of Scotland and I of England.

188

Ben Jonson's reference is in A Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies.

189

The Darker Superstitions of Scotland (London, 1834), p. 425, and Athenian Mercury, V, 1, No. 20, p. 13.

190

The south-western Scottish pork trade dates only from the latter part of the eighteenth century. There was trouble at Carlisle custom house when the Lowland Scots began to export cured pork, because of the difference between the English and Scottish salt duty. "For some time", complained a Scottish writer on agriculture, in June, 1811, "a duty of 2s. per hunderweight has been charged." Dublin was exporting pork to London in the reign of Henry VIII. A small trade in pork was conducted in eastern Scotland but was sporadic.

191

King James I of England and VI of Scotland detested ling as he detested pork. The food prejudices of the common people thus influenced royalty, although earlier kings and Norman nobles ate pork, eels, &c.

192

The Gaelic word sidh (Irish) or sith (Scottish) means "supernatural" and the "peace" and "silence" of supernatural beings. "Fairy", as Skeat has emphasized, means "enchantment". It has taken the place of "fay", which is derived from fate. The "fay" was a supernatural being.

193

From the root nem in neamh, heaven, nemus, a grove, &c.

194

Rendel Harris, Apple Cults, and The Ascent of Olympus.

195

Called also clach na cineamhuinn (the fatal stone).

196

There is evidence in the Gaelic manuscripts that time was measured by the apparent movements of the stars. Cuchullin, while sitting at a feast, says to his charioteer: "Laeg, my friend, go out, observe the stars of the air, and ascertain when midnight comes".

197

Elliot Smith, The Ancient Egyptians, p. 42.

198

It must be borne in mind that among the producers and users of Neolithic artifacts were the Easterners who collected and exported ores.

199

The boat dates the silting process rather than the silting process the boat.

200

The ancient belief is enshrined in Milton's lines referring to "ribs of gold" that "grow in Hell" and are dug out of its hill (Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 688-90).

201

Agricola, Chap. XII.

202

Herodian, III, 14.

203

Dion Cassius (Xiphilinus) LXXVI, 12.

204

Origins of English History, pp. 302-3.