Nee hog-ann kee-al riv eesh Sense does not come before age or Sense comes with age. Su-ell leh koo-it-av ah vill-ass on ky-ar-vaw-ch. A Irish proverb in Gaelic that I love for its succintness. Those who have, have no understanding of those who have not. On tay a hoo-rass skay-al ch k oo-at too-rig shay gaw skay-al oo-at.
The Irish way with words extends to curses. Subscribe To This Site. Privacy Policy Site Search. On tay a lee-on le maw-dee aye-rogue shay le dar-nid. Iss min-ick a vrish bay-al din-eh a hrone. Many a time a man's mouth broke his nose. Err scawh a ch k ale-ah a wir-enn na dee-neh. Under the shelter of each other, people survive. We have all got our weaknesses. Is ulk an gway noch k shay-dan do gwin-eh aye-gan.
Filleann an feall ar an bhfeallaire. Fill-en an fyal er on vee-yowl-er-eh The bad deed returns on the bad-deed doer. Is ait an mac an saol. Iss att on moc an say-ol. An rud is annamh is iontach. On rud iss an-niv is ee-on-tach k The thing that's seldom is wonderful. Nee nyart guh cur leh ch k ay-leh There's strength in unity. Ah-hneen kee-rogue kee-rogue el-eh. It takes one to know one. On tay a vee-on shoo-loch k , bee-on skay-loch k He who travels has stories to tell. Daw aw-dah on law tog-ann an traw-no-nah. No matter how long the day, the evening comes.
No matter how bad things are, they will end. Neel ane tin-tawn mor duh hin-tawn fayne. There's no fireplace like your own fireplace. Neel ane tone-tine mor duh hone-tine fayne. There's no sore ass like your own sore ass. Really just a funny word play on the famous Irish saying immediately above. Bee-on ire-cah faw-dah ar na bah hawr lahr.
Far away cows have long horns. Nee yane-hog on say-ol kop-al raw-sah dih-aw-sal Nobody can make a racehorse out of a donkey. On tay noch k will law-dir, nee foh-lawr doh veh glick. He who is not strong must be clever. Iss tre-shah on doo-ch k ass naw an ill-oonch Nature is stronger than nurture. Nee hoo-sal naw ee-shal, och k shal iss he-oss shal. Toose mawh lah na hib-reh A good start is half the work. Nee vee-on on rah och k mor a mee-on on smockt. Iss fahr an tlawn-teh naw na tawn-teh. Health is better than wealth. Iss fahr rih mawh naw druch k -hyah-sav. A good run is better than a bad stand.
Nuh-ar a vee-on fee-on iss-chih, vee-on an keel am-wih. When the wine is in, sense is out There's no sense to someone who's drunk. Nee lee-ah din-eh naw bah-rule There are as many people as opinions. Ierne was called the Isle of learned Druids. Plutarch relates that Claudius, exploring, "found on an island near Britain an order of Magi, reputed holy by the people.
The Nemidians reached Ireland from Scythia, but were accompanied by Druids; who, however, were confounded by the Fomorian Druids. At first the Nemidians were victorious, but the Fomorian leader brought forward his most powerful spells, and forced the others into exile. Beothach, Nemid's grandson, retired with his clan to northern Europe, or Scandinavia; where "they made themselves perfect in all the arts of divination, Druidism, and philosophy, and returned, after some generations, to Erinn under the name of the Tuatha de Danaan.
The Draoithe were wise men from the East. The Battle of Moyrath, asserted by monkish writers to have taken place in , decided the fate of the Druids. And yet, the Four Masters relate that as early as B. It was in the same night He was born that you were born; that is, in the 8th of the Calends of January, though the year was not the same. It was then that Conchobar believed; and he was one of the two men that believed in God in Erinn before the coming of the faith.
Druidesses were not necessarily wives of Druids, but females possessed of Druidical powers, being often young and fair. Some names of Druidesses have been preserved; as Geal Chossach, or Cossa, white-legged , of Inisoven, Donegal, where her grave is still pointed out to visitors. Eithne and Ban Draoi were famous sorcerers. Tradition talks of Women's Isles of Ireland, as of Scotland, where Druidesses, at certain festivals, lived apart from their husbands, as did afterwards Culdee wives at church orders. Michael, on Sena Isle of Brittany, and elsewhere, such religious ladies were known.
Scotch witches in their reputed powers of transformation were successors of Druidesses. Several ancient nunneries are conjectured to have been Druidesses' retreats, or as being established at such hallowed sites. At Kildare, the retreat of St. Brigid and her nuns, having charge of the sacred fire, there used to be before her time a community of Irish Druidesses, virgins, who were called, from their office, Ingheaw Andagha, Daughters of Fire.
The well-known Tuam, with its nine score nuns, may be an instance, since the word Cailtach means either nun or Druidess. On this, Hackett remarks, "The. It was decidedly dangerous for any one to meddle with those ladies, since they could raise storms, cause diseases, or strike with death. But how came Pliny to say that wives of Druids attended certain religious rites naked, but with blackened bodies? Enchantresses, possessed of evil spirits, like as in ancient Babylon, or as in China now, were very unpleasant company, and a source of unhappiness in a family.
Shearman declared that Lochra and Luchadmoel were the heads of the Druids' College, prophesying the coming of the Talcend St. Patrick , that the first was lifted up and dashed against a stone by the Saint, the other was burnt in the ordeal of fire at Tara, that the Druid Mautes was he who upset the Saint's chalice, and that Ida and Ona were two converted Druids. The Synod of Drumceat, in , laid restrictions on Druids, but the Druids were officially abolished after the decisive Battle of Moyrath, Richey may be right, when he says in his History of the Irish People: Ireland had a supply of the so-called Druidical appendages and adornments.
There were thin laminae of gold with rounded plates at the ends. Others had penannular and bulbous terminations. Twisted wire served for lumbers or girdle-torques. A twisted one of gold, picked up at Ballycastle, weighed 22 oz. Gorgets are seen only in Ireland and Cornwall. The Dying Gladiator, in Rome, has a twisted torque about his neck. The gold mines of Wicklow doubtless furnished the precious metal, as noted in Senchus Mor. Pliny refers to the golden torques of Druids. One, from Tara, was 5 ft. A Todh , found twelve feet in a Limerick bog, was of thin chased gold, with concave hemispherical ornaments.
The Iodhan Moran , or breastplate, would contract on the neck if the judges gave a false judgment. The crescent ornament was the Irish Cead-rai-re , or sacred ship, answering to Taliesin's Cwrwg Gwydrin , or glass boat. An armilla of 15 ozs. The glass beads, cylindrical in shape. The Dublin Museum--Irish Academy collection--contains over three hundred gold specimens. Many precious articles had been melted down for their gold. The treasure trove regulations have only existed since Lunettes are common The Druids' tiaras were semi-oval, in thin plates, highly embossed.
The golden breast-pins, Dealg Oir , are rare. Torques are often spiral. Circular gold plates are very thin and rude. Pastoral staffs, like pagan ones, have serpents twisted round them, as seen on the Cashel pastoral staff. O'Curry says--"Some of our old glossarists explain the name Druid by doctus , learned; and Fili , a poet, as a lover of learning. The Druid, in his simple character, does not appear to have been ambulatory, but Stationary. He is not entitled to any privileges or immunities such as the poets and Brehons or judges enjoyed.
He considers the Druids' wand was of yew, and that they made use of ogham writing. Some of the ideas developed in that Christian work were supposed traditional notions of earlier and Druidical times. Thus, we learn that there were eight Winds: The thickness of the earth is measured by the space from the earth to the firmament. As the shell is about the egg, so is the firmament around the earth. The firmament is a mighty sheet of crystal. The twelve constellations represent the year, as the sun runs through one each month. We are also in formed that "Brigh Ambui was a female author of wisdom and prudence among the men of Erin--after her came Connla Cainbhrethach, chief doctor of Connaught.
He excelled the men of Erin in wisdom, for he was filled with the grace of the Holy Ghost; he used to contend with the Druids, who said that it was they that made heaven and the earth and the sea--and the sun and moon. It is not surprising that Dr. Richey, in his Short History of the Irish People , should write: As to the Druids themselves, we have no distinct information. Patrick, the Druids "seem to be nothing more than the local priests or magicians attached to the several tribal chiefs,--perhaps not better than the medicine-men of the North-American Indians.
As that period was prior to the earliest assumed for the Welsh Taliesin, one is at a loss to account for the great difference between the two peoples, then so closely associated in intercourse. The opinion of the able O'Beirne Crowe is thus expressed: It is singular that Taliesin should mention the sun as being sent in a coracle from Cardigan Bay to Arkle, or Arklow, in Ireland.
This leads Morien to note the "solar drama performed in the neighbourhood of Borth, Wales, and Arklow, Ireland. This suspicion once raised, the parallel case of St. Colum Kille occupying Iona with his Irish monks and priests, when he went upon his missionary expedition to the Picts, occurs to the mind.
Clive believed the civilization of Ireland was not due to the Celt, but to the darker race before them. In Druidism he saw little of a Celtic character, "and that all of what was noble and good contained in the institution was in some way derived from Southern and Euskarian sources. There, the true Welsh--those of the south and south-east--are certainly not the light Celt, but the dark Iberian, like to the darker Bretons and northern Spaniards.
Martin, who wrote his Western Islands in , tells us. The laws found in the legal code of the Irish people were administered by these Brehons. They were hereditary judges of the tribes, and had certain lands which were attached to the office. The successors of this important class are the Sheriffs of counties.
The learned John Toland, born in Londonderry, , who was a genuine patriot in his day, believed in his country's Druids. In the Hebrides, also, he found harpers by profession, and evidence of ancient Greek visitants. In Dublin he observed the confidence in augury by ravens. He recognized Druids' houses still standing, and the heathen practices remaining in his country. He had no doubts of their sun-worship, and of Abaris, the Druid friend of Pythagoras, being from his own quarters.
While he thought the Greeks borrowed from the northern Druids, he admitted that both may have learned from the older Egyptians. Rhys, as a wise and prudent man, is not willing to abandon the Druids because of the absurd and most Positive announcements of enthusiastic advocates; since he says, "I for one am quite prepared to believe in a.
The same with Merlin. After all eliminations, there is still a substantial residue. One may learn a lesson from the story told of Tom Moore. When first shown old Irish MSS. I never knew anything about them before, and I had no right to have undertaken the History of Ireland. Druid Houses , like those of St. They are arched, conical, stone structures, with a hole at the top for smoke escape. Toland calls them "little arch'd, round, stone buildings, capable only of holding one person.
There is generally in many no cement. The so-called Oratory of St. The writer was supported by the Guide at Glendalough, in the opinion of the great antiquity of St. The house at Dundalk is still a place of pilgrimage. The one at Gallerus, Kerry, has a semi-circular window. Of these oratories, so called, Wise observes, "They were not Christian, but were erected in connection with this early, let us call it, Celtic religion.
If they had been Christian, they would have had an altar and other Christian emblems, of which, however, they show no trace. If they had been. Christian, they would have stood east and west, and have had openings in those directions. Irish Druids lived before the advent of Socialism. They appear to have had the adjudication of the law, but, as ecclesiastics, they delivered the offenders to the secular arm for punishment. Their holy hands were not to be defiled with blood. The law, known as the Brehon Law, then administered, was not socialistic.
Irish law was by no means democratic, and was, for that reason, ever preferred to English law by the Norman and English chieftains going to Ireland. The old contests between the Irish and the Crown lay between those gentlemen-rulers and their nominal sovereign. So, in ancient times, the Druids supported that Law which favoured the rich at the expense of the poor.
They were not Socialists. They were, however, what we should call Spiritualists , though that term may now embrace people of varied types. They could do no less wonderful things than those claimed to have been done by Mahatmas or modern Mediums. They could see ghosts, if not raise them. They could listen to them, and talk with them; though unable to take photos of spirits, or utilize them for commercial intelligence. It would be interesting to know if these seers of Ireland regarded the ghosts with an imaginative or a scientific eye. Could they have investigated the phenomena, with a view to gain a solution of the mysteries around them?
It is as easy to call a Druid a deceiver, as a politician a traitor, a scientist a charlatan, a saint a hypocrite. As the early days of Irish Christianity were by no means either cultured or philosophical, and almost all our knowledge of Druids comes from men who accepted what. Our sources of knowledge concerning the Druids are from tradition and records. The first is dim, unreliable, and capable of varied interpretation. Of the last, Froude rightly remarks--"Confused and marvellous stories come down to us from the early periods of what is called History, but we look for the explanation of them in the mind or imagination of ignorant persons.
There is yet another source of information--the preservation of ancient symbols, by the Church and by Freemasons. The scholar is well assured that both these parties, thus retaining the insignia of the past, are utterly ignorant of the original meaning, or attach a significance of their own invention. Judging from Irish literature--most of which may date from the twelfth century, though assuming to be the eighth, or even fifth--the Druids were, like the Tuatha, nothing better than spiritualistic conjurers, dealers with bad spirits, and always opposing the Gospel.
We need be careful of such reports, originating, as they did, in the most superstitious era of Europe, and reflecting the ideas of the period. It was easy to credit Druids and Tuaths with miraculous powers, when the Lives of Irish Saints abounded with narratives of the most childish wonders, and the most needless and senseless display of the miraculous. The destruction of Druids through the invocation of Heaven by the Saints, though nominally in judgment for a league.
Such tales fittingly represented a period, when demoniacal possession accounted for diseases or vagaries of human action, and when faith in our Heavenly Father was weighed down by the cruel oppression of witchcraft. Still, in the many credulous and inventive stories of the Middle Ages, may there not be read, between the lines, something which throws light upon the Druids? Traditional lore was in that way perpetuated. Popular notions were expressed in the haze of words.
Lingering superstitions were preserved under the shield of another faith.
Then, again, admitting the common practice of rival controversialists destroying each other's manuscripts, would not some be copied, with such glosses as would show the absurdities of the former creeds, or as warnings to converts against the revival of error? Moreover,--as the philosophers, in early Christian days of the East, managed to import into the plain and simple teaching of Jesus a mass of their own symbolism, and the esoteric learning of heathenism,--was it unlikely that a body of Druids, having secrets of their own, should, upon their real or assumed reception of Christianity, import some of their own opinions and practices, adapted to the promulgation of the newer faith?
No one can doubt that the Druids, to retain their influence in the tribe, would be among the first and most influential of converts; and history confirms that fact. As the more intelligent, and reverenced from habit, with skill in divination and heraldic lore, they would command the respect of chiefs, while their training as orators or reciters would be easily utilized by the stranger priests in the service of the Church. But if, as is likely, the transition from Druidism to Christianity was gradual, possibly through the medium of.
Culdeeism, the intrusion of pagan ideas in the early religious literature can be more readily comprehended. As so much of old paganism was mixed up in the Patristic works of Oriental Christendom, it cannot surprise one that a similar exhibition of the ancient heathenism should be observed in the West. Their very names in Irish are identically the same as those by which they were distinguished by that earlier race. Elsewhere reference is made to the Culdees.
They were certainly more pronounced in Ireland, and the part of Scotland contiguous to Ireland, than in either England or Wales. Ireland differs from its neighbours in the number of allusions to Druids in national stories. Tradition is much stronger in Ireland than in Wales, and often relates to Druids. On the other hand, it differs from that of its neighbours in the absence of allusions to King Arthur, the hero of England, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany.
Rome, too, was strongly represented in Britain, north and south, but not in Ireland. Modern Druidism, whether of Christian or heathen colour, claims connection with Stonehenge, Abury, and the stones of Brittany. Why should not the same claim be made for Irish Druids, earlier and better known than those of Wales? As megalithic remains, in the shape of graves and circles,. Why, also, in Ossian, are the Stones of Power referred to the Norsemen only? That the Druids exercised the healing art is certain. Jubainville refers to a MS. Gall, dating from the end of the fourteenth century, which has on the back of it some incantations written by Irish seers of the eighth or ninth century.
In one of them are these words--"I admire the remedy which Dian-Cecht left,". Though a mysterious halo hangs about the Irish Druids, though they may have been long after the Serpent-worshippers, and even later than the Round Tower builders, tradition confidently asserts their existence in the Island, but, doubtless, credits them with powers beyond those ever exercised.
The love for a romantic Past is not, however, confined to Ireland, and a lively, imagination will often close the ear to reason in a cultured and philosophical age. Let us see what the biographers of St. Patrick have to relate about the Druids. A work published at St. Omer, in , by John Heigham, has this story: Patricke, even in the same kin that Simon Magus resisted the apostle S. The Triptartite Life of St.
Patrick blessed the ground, and it swallowed up the Druids. The book of is the authority for another story: Patrick contended with the Druids before King. One, Lochra, hardened the King's heart against the preaching; so "the Saint prayed that he might be lifted out and die, even as St. Peter had obtained the death of Simon Magus.
In an instant Lochra was raised up in the air, and died, falling on a stone. The authoress of Ireland, the Ur of the Chaldees , ventured to write: O'Donovan, upon the Four Masters , observes: It is not necessary to discuss the question as to the individual Saint himself, around which so much controversy has raged.
They who read theology between the lines of old Irish history may be induced to doubt whether such a person ever existed, or if he were but a Druid himself, such being the obscurity of old literature. Bridget's early career was associated with the Druids. A miracle she wrought in the production of butter caused her Druidical master to become a Christian.
Colgan contended that St. Patrick, by "continually warring with Druids, exposed his body to a thousand kinds of deaths. Patric , which declares "Patric made this hymn," we are informed that it was "against incantations of false prophets, against black laws of hereticians, against surroundings of idolism, against spells of women, and of smiths, and of Druids.
Patrick was a youthful slave to Milcho, a Druidical priest. Gradwell's Succat , therefore, says, "He must often have practised heathenish rites in the presence of his household, and thus excited the horror of his Christian slave. Columba, the Culdee, was much the same as St. Patrick in his mission work, and his contests with Druids. He changed water into wine, stilled a storm, purified wells, brought down rain, changed winds, drove the devil out of a milk-pail, and raised the dead to life.
All that tradition acknowledged as miraculous in the Druids was attributed equally to Columba as to Patrick. Adamnan of Iona tells some strange stories of his master. One tale concerns Brochan the Druid. But the Saint put off, and "the vessel ran against the wind with extraordinary speed, to the wonder of the large crowd. The Saint wanted the Druid to release an Irish female captive, which he declined to do. But, says Adamnan, "an angel sent from heaven, striking him severely, has broken in pieces the glass cup which he held in his hand, and from which he was in the act of drinking, and he himself is left half dead.
They have credited them with the honours of a religious system founded upon primitive monotheism, and crowned by a spiritualism more elevated than that of Plato and St. Leflocq is justified in adding, "One will be at first confounded by the extreme disproportion which exists between the rare documents left by the past, and the large developments presented by modern historians. Pliny speaks thus of the Druids, "A man would think the Persians learned all their magic from them;" and Pomponius Mela affirmed, "They profess to have great knowledge of the motions of the heavens and the stars.
Who, then, were the Druids of Greeks and Romans? Why did Jamblichus make Pythagoras a disciple of Gaulish priests? Clement say the Druids. Cyril, that they held but one God? Why should Origen, like the foe of early Christianity, Celsus, believe that the Druids of Gaul had the same doctrines as the Jews? Himerius speaks of Abaris, the sage, from Scythia, but well acquainted with Greek, with this description: It would seem more probable--with respectful consideration of the learned Morien, who makes Wales the teacher of the world--that wisdom should emanate from a people cultured long before Abrahamic days, though subsequently regarded as rude shepherd Scythians, than proceed from a western land preserving no monuments of learning.
Then, the dress, the staff, the egg, and other things associated with Druids, had their counterpart In the East, from, perhaps, five thousand years before our Christian era. As to so-called Druidical monuments, no argument can be drawn thence, as to the primary seat of this mysticism, since they are to be seen nearly all over the world. An instance of the absurd ideas prevalent among the ancients respecting Druids is given in Dion Chrysostom: Toland makes out that Lucan spoke to one; but Lucan said it not. The Edinburgh Review of may well come to the conclusion that "the place they really fill in history is indefinite and obscure.
Madame Blavatsky has her way of looking at them. She beheld their god in the Great Serpent, and their faith in a succession of worlds. Their likeness to the Persian creed is noticed thus: Poppo, a Dutchman of the eighth century, wrote De officiis Druidum ; and Occo, styled the last of the Frisian Druids, was the author of a similar work.
Worth, in , and Frickius of were engaged on the same subject. It is curious to notice St. Some derive Druid from Druthin , the old German for God. The word Druith is applied to a Druidess. While many treat the Druids as religious, O'Curry asserts, "There is no ground whatever for believing the Druids to have been the priests of any special positive worship. The mystical, but accomplished, Massey tell us, "An Irish name for Druidism is Maithis , and that includes the Egyptian dual Thoth called Mati, which, applied to time, is the Terin or two Times at the base of all reckoning"--"likely that the Druidic name is a modified form of Tru-Hut.
Toland, one of the earliest and most philosophical Irish writers on this subject, thus spoke of them in his History of the Druids --"who were so prevalent in Ireland, that to this hour their ordinary word for magician is Druid Drai , the art magic is called Druidity Druidheacht , and the wand, which was one of the badges of the profession, the rod of Druidism Slatnan Druidheacht. Windele, in Kilkenny records, expressed this view: To them was entrusted the charge of religion, jurisprudence, and medicine.
They certainly well studied the book of Nature, were acquainted with the marvels of natural magic, the proportions of plants and herbs, and what of astronomy was then known; they may even have been skilled in mesmerism and biology. As this may demand too much from our faith, we may remember, as Canon Bourke says, that "the youth of these countries have been taught to regard the Pagan Druids as educated savages, whereas they had the same opportunity of acquiring knowledge, and had really possessed as much as the Pagans of the Peloponnesus.
Has not much misapprehension been caused, by authors concluding that all varieties of religion in Ireland proceeded from a class of men who, while popularly called Druids, may not have been connected with them? We know very far more about these varieties of faith in Ireland, before Christianity, than we do about any description of religion in Wales; and yet the Druidism of one country is reported as so different from that in the other immediately contiguous. Such are the difficulties meeting the student of History. The Irish Druidical religion, like that of Britain and Gaul, has given rise to much discussion, whether it began, as some say, when Suetonius drove Druids from Wales, or began in Ireland before known in either Britain or Gaul, direct from the East.
Sophie Bryant thinks that "to understand the Irish non Christian tradition and worship, we should understand the Corresponding tradition and worship, and their history, for all the peoples that issued from the same Aryan home. While Professor O'Curry had "no ground whatever for believing the Druids to have been the priests of any special positive worship,"--and Vallencey could say," From all I could collect from Irish documents, relative to the religion of the heathen Irish, it appears that the Druidical religion never made a part of it,"--popular opinion has always been in the other direction.
Yet Vallencey would credit Druids with some religion, when he mentions the Druidical oracular stone,--in Irish Logh-oun , in Cornish Logan,--"into which the Druids pretend that the Logh , or divine affluence, descended when they consulted it.
Famous Irish Sayings with Gaelic translation
Richey depreciates the Druid, when writing of the early Irish missionaries: Morien, his favourite disciple, boldly avows that Druidism, like Freemasonry, was a philosophy, founded on natural law, and not religion in the ordinary sense of that term. Maclean regarded Ossian's heroes "for the greater part cabalistic, and indicative of the solar worship. The Sabbath--a Babylonian word--was, it is said, kept on the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th of months, as with the Magi of the East.
Philo says all nations of antiquity kept the seventh day holy. Porphyry mentions the same thing of the heathen. Professor Sayce finds it was a day of rest with ancient Assyrians, as Dr. Schmidt of temple pagan worship. Eusebius asserted that almost all philosophers acknowledged it. The Roman Pontiffs regulated the Sabbath, and Roman school-boys had then a holiday.
The Persian word Shabet is clearly of Assyrian origin. The authoress of Mazzaroth says, "The Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, and the natives of India were acquainted with the seven days division of time, as were the Druids. On this, Walker's Historical Memoirs , , observes that "all the eminent schools, delectably situated, which were established by the Christian clergy in the fifth century, were erected on the ruins of those colleges. They were Ollamhain Re-dan , or Filidhe , poets.
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They acted as heralds, knowing the genealogy. With white robe, harp in hand, they encouraged warriors in battle Their power of satire was dreaded; and their praise, desired. As heralds they were called Seanachies.
As Bards they sang in a hundred different kinds of verse. Long after, they were patriots of the tribes Carolan, the old blind harper, called last of the Bards, died in Bards sang in the Hall of Shells: A lament for Dallan ran Fergus Finbheoil, fair lips , was a Fenian Bard. Ireland's Mirror , , speaks of Henessey, a living seer, as the Orpheus of his country. Amergin, brother of Heber, was the earliest of Milesian poets. Sir Philip Sydney praised the Irish Bards three centuries ago. One, in Munster, stopped by his power the corn's growth; and the satire of another caused a shortness of life.
Such rhymes were not to be patronized by the Anglo-Normans, in the Statute of One Bard directed his harp, a shell of wine, and his ancestor's shield to be buried with him. In rhapsody, some would see the images of coming events pass before them, and so declare them in song. He was surely useful who rhymed susceptible rats to death. The Irish war odes were called Rosg-catha , the Eye of Battle.
Was it for such songs that Irish-Danes were cruel to Bards? O'Reilly had a chronological account of Irish writers. As Froude truly remarks, "Each celebrated minstrel sang his stories in his own way, adding to them, shaping them, colouring them, as suited his peculiar genius. Walker's Irish Bards affirms that the "Order of the Bards continued for many succeeding ages invariably the same. Ferguson, in his Lays of the Western Gael , says, "The exactions of the Bards were so intolerable that the early Irish more than once endeavoured to rid themselves of the Order.
Higgins, in Celtic Druids , had no exalted opinion of them, saying, "The Irish histories have been most of them filled with lies and nonsense by their bards. The harp, according to Bede, was common in the seventh century. Columba played upon the harp. Meagor says of the first James of Scotland, "On the harp he excelled the Irish or the Highland Scots, who are esteemed the best performers on that instrument. Irish harpers were the most celebrated up to the last century. Ledwich thought the harp came in from Saxons and Danes. The Britons, some say, had it from the Romans. The old German harp had eighteen strings; the old Irish, twenty-eight; the modern Irish, thirty-three.
Bernard gives Archbishop Malachy, , the credit of introducing music into the Church service of Ireland. The Irish cruit was the Welsh crwdd or crwth. Hugh Rose relates, that "a certain string was selected as the most suitable for each song. They were hollow spheres, holding loose bits of metal for. The corn was a metallic horn; the drum, or tiompan , was a tabor; the piob-mela , or bagpipes, were borrowed from the far East; the bellows to the bag thereof were not seen till the sixteenth century.
The Irish used foghair , or whole tones, and foghair-beg , or semi-tones. The cor , or harmony, was chruisich , treble, and cronan , base. The names of clefs were from the Latin. In most ancient languages the same word is used for Bard and Sage. Quatrefages speaks of Bardic contests thus: The song only stops with the learning of one of the two. Walker ungallantly wrote, "We cannot find that the Irish had female Bards," while admitting that females cried the Caoine over the dead.
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Yet in Cathluina we read, "The daughter of Moran seized the harp, and her voice of music praised the strangers. Their souls melted at the song, like the wreath of snow before the eye of the sun. The Court Bards were required, says Dr. O'Donovan, to have ready seven times fifty chief stories, and twice fifty sub-stories, to repeat before the Irish King and his chiefs. Conor Mac Neasa, King of Ulster, had three thousand Bards, gathered from persecuting neighbouring chiefs.
Ossianic literature had a higher opinion of the Bards; as, "Such were the words of the Bards in the days of the Song; when the King heard the music of harps and the tales of other times. The chiefs gathered from all their hills, and heard the lovely sound.. They praised the voice of Cona, the first among a thousand bards. It is pleasant as the gale of the spring, that sighs on the hunter's ear, when he wakens from dreams of joy, and has heard the music of the spirits of the hill. The ghosts of departed Bards heard it. Their voice shall be heard in other ages, when the Kings of Temora have failed.
Keating, amusingly credulous as an Irish historian records with gravity the story of an ancient militia numbering nine thousand in time of peace, who had both sergeants and colonels. Into the ranks of these Fine Eirion. The Dinn Seanchas has poems by the Irish Bard of the second century, Finin Mac Luchna; and it asserts that "the people deemed each other's voices sweeter than the warblings of the melodious harp.
The Bards were Strabo's hymn-makers. Bryant felt that "The Isle of Song was soon to become the Isle of Saints;" and considered "Ireland of the Bards knew its Druids simply as men skilled in all magical arts, having no marked relation either to a system of theology, or to a scheme of ceremonial practice. The Brehon Law gives little information respecting Druids, though the Brehons were assumed to have been Originally Druid judges.
Patrick has the credit of compiling this record. These Brehons had a high reputation for justice; and yet it is confessed that when one was tempted to pass a false sentence, his chain of office would immediately tighten round his neck most uncomfortably as a warning. Of the Brehons, it is said by the editors--O'Mahony and Richey --"The learning of the Brehons became as useless to the public as the most fantastic discussions of the Schoolmen, and the whole system crystallized into a form which rendered social progress impossible.
In , English law existed in only four of the Irish counties; and Brehons and Ollamhs teachers were known to the end of the seventeenth century. The founding of the book of Brehon Law is thus explained: It was then that all the professors of the sciences Druids in Erin were assembled, and each of them exhibited his art before Patrick, in the presence of every chief in Erin. The Isle of Man lies just between Ireland and Wales.
Let us examine what can be shown about these matters therein. Boetius, translated by Alfred the Great, had a particularly doubtful story to tell; too similar, alas! The Archdruid was known as Kion-druaight , or Ard-druaight. Plowden thought the Druids emigrated thither after the slaughter at Mona; others declare Mona to have been an Irish Druidical settlement. Sacheverell refers to Druidical cairns on the tops of hills, which were dedicated to the Sun, and speaks of hymns having what were called cairn tunes.
Train says, "So highly were the Manx Druids distinguished for their knowledge of astronomy, astrology, and natural philosophy, that the Kings of Scotland sent their sons to be educated there. McAlpine says that Druid in Manx is Magician. The Deroo of Brittany were more ancient, said Henri Martin, than those Druids known to Romans; being "primitive Druids, a sacerdotal caste of old Celts. They were the builders, masons, or like Gobhan Saer, free smiths. The seat of the Archdruid of Gaul was at Dreux.
French writers have interested themselves in the Druidic question. The common impression is that Druids were only to be found in Brittany; but other parts of France possessed those priests arid bards. Certainly the northwest corner, the region of megalithic remains, continued later to be their haunt, being less disturbed there.
It was in Brittany, also, that the before-mentioned Oriental mysticism found so safe a home, and was nurtured so assiduously. But Druids were equally known in the south, centre, and north-east of France. Upon the tomb of the Archdruid Chyndonax was found an inscription in Greek, thus rendered by the Dijon author Numbers of the learned went to view the inscription, and an urn found within the tomb.
Mithras was a form of Apollo, or the Sun. Guenebauld spoke of the prohibition of the Druidical religion by the Emperors Augustus, Tiberias, and Claudius; adding that the Druids "furent chassez du mont Drvys or. Drvyde proche d'ostum, a cause de leur trop cruel sacrifice d'hommes. He had a great belief in the astronomical skill of the Druids, from their use of the thirty years cycle, the revolution period of the planet Saturn. At the Congress of Arras, in , the question debated was--"Up to what period Roman polytheism had penetrated into Belgic Gaul;--and up to what period continued the struggle between Polytheism and Christianity?
And these divinities--what were they? Evidently those of the country from which the people had been forced to flee. According to others, the etymology should be, in the Gaelic language, druidheacht , divination, magic; or, better, dern , oak, and wydd , mistletoe. The French authors had the following account of the Druids' great charm This egg has been the origin of a crowd of superstitions, which, up to a century ago, were in vogue in Cornwall, Wales, and the mountains of Scotland; they continued to carry these balls of glass, called serpent stones , to which they attributed particular virtues.
Druidesses of Gaul had a sanctuary on the Isle of Sena, Finisterre. Druidism in France was condemned as late as , by the Council of Nantes; and, later on, by the Capitularies of Charlemagne. Renan supposed that Druidism remained a form exclusively national. Justin's remark, that "the Greek colony of Marseilles civilized the Gauls," may help to explain how Gaulish Druids knew Greek, and how some French writers traced Druidism to the Phocians of Southern Gaul.
Then, again, we have Ammianus Marcellinus saying, "The Druids were formed into fraternities as the authority of Pythagoras decreed. They were like his own augurs, and their Archdruid was his pontifex maximus. D'Arbois de Jubainville, in his account of Irish Mythology, has, of course, references to the Druids. He lays emphasis on the difference between those of Gaul and those of our islands. These need not, like the Druids proper celebrate sacrifices. He traces the word file , a seer, from the same root as the Breton givelout , to see.
The French author records that Polyhistor, Timagenus, Valerius Maximus, and others wrote of the north-western men holding Pythagorean doctrines; but he adds, that while a second birth was regarded by the Pythagoreans as a punishment of evil, it was esteemed by the others as a privilege of heroes. He, unlike men of the Welsh Druidic school, joins Dr. Ledwich, and some Irish authorities, in tracing Druidism to the German and Scandinavian races; saying, "The religion of our pagan ancestors was that of Odin or Woden. In the book Volu-Spa , or the Priestess, the first song of the poetic Edda, he discovers what Ossian and other British and Irish bards describe as Spirits of the air, of earth, of waters, of plains, and woods.
Baecker's northern Gauls had priests of various kinds. The sacrificers were called Blodmanner , or Pluostari ; the sustainers of order were Ewart and Gotes-ewart ; the protectors of sacred woods, Harugari , Parawari , or Wihesmart ; the prophets, Spamadhr, Wizago, Vitega, Veitsga, Weissager, Wetekey. The Priestesses were the Vaulur. The horse, bull, boar, and sheep were sacrificed. Constant application of Druidic arts upon the individual must have given a sadness and terror to life, continuing long after the Druid had been supplanted.
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It was a comfort to know that magician could be pitted against magician, and that though one might turn a person into a swan or horse, another could turn him back again. Yet, the chewing of one's thumb was sometimes as effectual a disenchanter as the elevation or marking of the cross in subsequent centuries.
Thus, when Fionn was once invited to take a seat beside a fair lady on her way to a palace, he, having some suspicion, put his thumb between his teeth, and she immediately changed into an ugly old hag with evil in her heart. That was a simple mode of detection, but may have been efficacious only in the case of such a hero as Fionn. Certainly, many a bad spirit would be expelled, in a rising quarrel, if one party were wise enough to put his thumb between his teeth.
Charm-mongers, who could take off a spell, must have been popular characters, and as useful as wart-removers. It is a pity, however, that the sacred salmon which used to frequent the Boyne is missing now, when examinations are so necessary, as he or she who bit a piece forgot nothing ever after. Balar, the Fomorian King, was a good-natured fellow, for, finding that a glance from his right eye caused death to a subject, he kept that eye constantly closed. One way of calling spirits from the deep, to do one's will, was to go to sleep with the palms of both hands upon the cheek.
The magic cauldron was not in such requirement as with the Welsh. But it was a Druidic trick to take an idol to bed, lay the hands to the face, and discover the secret of a riddle in dreams. Another trick reminds one of the skill of modern spiritualistic mediums, who could discover the history of a man by a piece of his coat; for, Cormac read the whole life of a dog from the skull.
Healing powers were magical. Our forefathers fancied that a part of enjoyment in heaven was fighting by day and feasting at night, the head cut off in daylight conflict resuming its position when the evening table was spread. The rival forces of Fomorians and Danaans had Druids, whose special work was to heal the wounded at night, so as to be ready for the next morning's battle.
Nothing was more common than the raising of Druidic fogs. It would be easier to do that in Ireland or Scotland than in Australia. The Story of Cu speaks of a King Brudin who "made a black fog of Druidism" by his draoidheacht , or magic. Druidic winds were blasting, as they came from the East. A wonderful story in an old MS. The Reataire chief Druids then consecrated some water, of which she drank, and conceived; and the produce of her womb was a white lamb.
Say the priests, 'You shall now bring forth a son, and he shall be King over Ireland. Cuchulainn of Ulster was much given to magic. He caught birds by it. He left his wife to be with a lady in fairy-land. Caught by spells, he was brought back home. He drank the draught of forgetfulness that he might not remember fairy-land, and she drank to forget her jealousy. When the Danaans raised a storm to drive off the invading hosts of Milesians, this was the spell used by Milesius, as told in the Book of Invasions: By the 14th Canon of the Synod at Armagh, as asserted for the year , a penance was exacted for any soothsaying, or the foretelling of future events by an inspection.
It is curious to see how this magic was, by the early writers, associated with Simon Magus; so much so, that, as Rhys observes, "The Goidelic Druids appear at times under the name of the School of Simon Druid. Fionn was once coursing with his dog Bran, when the hare suddenly turned into a lady weeping for the loss of her ring in the lake. Like a gallant, the hero dived down and got it; but all he had for his trouble was to be turned by her into a white-haired old man.
On another occasion he was changed into a grey fawn. But Fionn endured the metamorphoses of twenty years as a hog, one hundred a stag, one hundred an eagle, and thirty a fish, besides living one hundred as a man. The heroine Caer had to be alternate years a swan and a woman. The Kilkenny Transactions refer to one Liban, transformed for three hundred years as a fish, or, rather a mermaid, with her lap-dog in the shape of an otter after her.
Bevan, however, caught her in a net, had her baptized, and then she died. In the Fate of the Children of Lir , we read of Aoife, second wife of Lir, jealous of her husband's children by his first mate, turning them into four swans till her spell could be broken. This happened under the Tuath rule, and lasted nine hundred years. They are reported to have said, "Thou shalt fall in revenge for it, for thy power for our destruction is not greater than the Druidic power of our friends to avenge it upon thee. At last they heard the bell of St. This broke the spell. They sang to the High King of heaven, revealed their name, and cried out, "Come to baptize us, O cleric, for our death is near.
An odd story of the Druid Mananan is preserved in the Ossian Transactions. It concerned a magical branch, bearing. They who shook the tree were lulled to sleep by music, forgetting want or sorrow. Through that, Cormac, grandson of Conn of the hundred fights, lost his wife Eithne, son Cairbre, and daughter Ailbhe.
At the end of a year's search, and passing through a dark, magical mist, he came to a hut, where a youth gave him a pork supper. The entertainer proved to be Mananan. The story runs, "After this Mananan came to him in his proper shape, and said thus: It was I that worked magic upon you, so that you might be with me tonight in friendship. A chessboard often served the purpose of divination. The laying on of hands has been from remote antiquity an effectual mode for the transmission of a charm.
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But a Magic Wand or Rod , in proper hands, has been the approved method of transformation, or any other miraculous interposition. Here is one Wand story relative to the romance of Grainne and Diarmuid: This was the boar that killed, not the Syrian Adonis, but a similar sun-deity, Diarmuid. When Fionn, the disappointed husband, in pursuit of the runaway, found the abductor dying, he was entreated by the beautiful solar hero to save him.
Sullivan has a translation of the Fair of Carman , concerning three magicians and their mother from Athens: They came to Erin to bring evil upon the Tuatha de Danann, by blighting the fertility of this isle. The Tuatha were angry at this; and they sent against them Ai the son of Allamh, on the part of their poets, and Credenbel on the part of their satirists, and Lug Laeban, i. And these never parted from them until they forced the three men over the sea, and they left a pledge behind them, i. A counter-charm is given in the Senchus Mor.
When the Druids sought to poison St. Patrick, the latter wrote over the liquor: He left it on record that whoever pronounced these words over poison or liquor should receive no injury from it. It might be useful with Irish whisky; only the translator adds that the words of the charm, like most of the charms of the Middle Ages, appear to have had no meaning. Spiritualism, in all its forms, appears to have been practised by the Irish and Scotch Druids.
Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionary has an account of the Divination of the Toghairm, once a noted superstition among the Gaels, and evidently derived from Druid-serving ancestors. The so-called prophet "was wrapped in the warm, smoking robe of a newly slain ox or cow, and laid at full length in the wildest recess of some lonely waterfall.
The question was then put to him, and the oracle was left in solitude to consider it. Similar traditions are related by Kennedy, in Fictions of the Irish Celts. One of the tales is of Sculloge, who spent his father's gold. While out hunting he saw an old man betting his left hand against his right. At once he played with him for sixpence, but won of the ancient Druid a hundred guineas. The next game won, the old fellow was made to rebuild the Irishman's mill. Another victory brought him as wife a princess from the far country.
But Sabina, when married, besought him to have no more to do with old Lassa Buaicht of the glen. Things went on well a good while, till the man wanted more gold, and he ventured upon a game. Losing, he was directed to bring the old Druid the Sword of Light. Sabina helped her husband to a Druidic horse, that carried him to her father's castle. There he learned it was held by another brother, also a Druid, in an enchanted place. With a black steed he leaped the wall, but was driven out by the magic sword.
At last, through Fiach the Druid, the sword was given to Lassa Buaicht. The cry came, "Take your Sword of Light, and off with his head. Conn of the Hundred Battles is often mentioned in. One of the Irish MSS. While standing in the usual place this morning, Conn happened to tread on a stone, and immediately the stone shrieked under his feet so as to be heard all over Tara, and throughout all Bregia or East Meath.
Conn then asked his Druids why the stone had shrieked, what its name was, and what it said. The Druids took fifty-three days to consider, and returned the following answer: It has shrieked under your royal feet, and the number of the shrieks, which the stone has given forth, is the number of Kings that will succeed you. The Druids were engaged putting the wounded in a bath of herbs, and then returning them whole to the battle ranks. Nash, who showed much scepticism respecting Druids in Britain, wrote: We are told of a rebel chief who was helped by a Druid against the King of Munster, to plague the Irish in the south-west by magically drying up all the water.
The King succeeded in finding another Druid who brought forth an abundant supply. He did but cast his javelin, and a powerful spring burst forth at the spot where the weapon fell. Dill, the Druidical grandfather of another King of Munster, had a magical black horse, which won at every race. Elsewhere is a chapter on the Tuatha de Danaans, concerning whom are so many stories of Druids. Attention is drawn by Rhys to "the tendency of higher races to ascribe magical powers to lower ones; or, rather, to the conquered.
A Druid's counsel was sometimes of service.