CHAPTER XIV
The World of Our Ancestors
"All Heals"—Influences of Cardinal Points—The Four Red Divisions of the World—The Black North, White South, Purple East, and Dun or Pale East—Good and Bad Words connected with South and North—North the left, South the right, East in front, and West behind—Cardinal Points Doctrine in Burial Customs—Stone Circle Burials—Christian and Pagan Burial Rites—Sunwise Customs—Raising the Devil in Stone Circle—Coloured Winds—Coloured Stones raise Winds—The "God Body" and "Spirit Husk"—Deities and Cardinal Points—Axis of Stonehenge Avenue—God and Goddesses of Circle—Well Worship—Lore of Druids.
The ancient superstitions dealt with in the previous chapter afford us glimpses of the world in which our ancestors lived, and some idea of the incentives that caused them to undertake long and perilous journeys in search of articles of religious value. They were as greatly concerned as are their descendants about their health and their fate. Everything connected with the deity, or possessing, as was believed, the influence of the deity, was valuable as a charm or as medicine. The mistletoe berry was a famous medicine because it was the fruit of a parasite supposed to contain the "life substance" of a powerful deity. It was an "All Heal" or "Cure All",154 yet it was a quack medicine and quite useless. Red earth was "blood earth"; it contained the animating principle too. Certain herbs were supposed to be curative. Some herbs were, and in the course of time their precise qualities were identified. But many of them continued in use, although quite useless, because of the colour of their berries, the shape of their leaves, or the position in which they grew. If one red-berried plant was "lucky" or curative, all red-berried plants shared in its reputation. It was because of the lore attached to colours that dusky pearls were preferred to white pearls, just as in Ceylon yellow pearls are chiefly favoured because yellow is the sacred colour of the Buddhists. Richard of Cirencester,155 referring to Bede, says that British pearls are "often of the best kind and of every colour: that is, red, purple, violet, green, but principally white".
In the lore of plants, in religious customs, including burial customs, and in beliefs connected with the seasons, weather, and sacred sites, there are traces of a doctrine based on the belief that good or bad influences "flowed" from the cardinal points, just as good or bad influences "flowed" from gems, metals, wood, and water. When, for instance, certain herbs were pulled from the ground, it was important that one should at the time of the operation be facing the south. A love-enticing plant had to be plucked in this way, and immediately before sunrise.
There was much superstition in weather lore, as the beliefs connected with St. Swithin's Day indicate. Certain days were lucky for removals in certain directions. Saturday was the day for flitting northward, and Monday for flitting southward. Monday was "the key of the week". An old Gaelic saying, repeated in various forms in folk stories, runs:
Shut the north window,
And quickly close the window to the south;
And shut the window facing west,
Evil never came from the east.
South-running water was "powerful" for working protective charms; north-running water brought evil.
Diagram of the Gaelic Airts (Cardinal Points) and their Associated Colours referred to in the text
Spring was connected with the east, summer with the south, autumn with the west, and winter with the north.
The idea behind these and other similar beliefs was that "the four red divisions" or the "four brown divisions" of the world were controlled by deities or groups of deities, whose influences for good or evil were continually "flowing", and especially when winds were blowing. A good deity sent a good wind, and a bad deity sent a bad wind. Each wind was coloured. The north was the airt156 (cardinal point) of evil, misfortune, and bad luck, and was coloured black; the south was the source of good luck, good fortune, summer, and longevity, and was coloured white; the east was a specially sacred airt, and was coloured purple-red, while the west was the airt of death, and was coloured dun or pale. East and south and north and west were connected. There were various colours for the subsidiary points of the compass.
This doctrine was a very ancient one, because we find that in the Gaelic language the specially good words are based on the word for the south, and the specially bad ones on the name for the north. In Welsh and Gaelic the north is on the left hand and the south on the right hand, the east in front, and the west behind. It is evident, therefore, that the colour scheme of the cardinal points had a connection with sun worship. A man who adored the rising sun faced the east, and had the north on his left and the south on his right. In early Christian Gaelic literature it is stated that on the Day of Judgment the goats (sinners) will be sent to the north (the left hand) and the sheep (the justified) to the south (the right hand).
The same system can be traced in burial customs. Many of the ancient graves lie east and west. Graves that lie north and south may have been those of the members of a different religious cult, but in some cases it is found that the dead were placed in position so that they faced the east. In the most ancient graves in Egypt men were laid on their right sides with their feet directed towards the "red north" and their faces towards the golden east. Women were laid on the left sides facing the east. Red was in ancient Egypt the male colour, and white and yellow the female colours; the feet of the men were towards the red north and those of women towards the white or yellow south.
All ancient British burials were not made in accordance with solar-cult customs. It can be shown, however, in some cases that, although a burial custom may appear to be either of local or of independent origin, the fundamental doctrine of which it was an expression was the same as that behind other burial customs. Reference may be made, by way of illustration, to the graves at the stone circle of Hakpen Hill in the Avebury area. In the seventeenth century a large number of skeletons were here unearthed. Dr. Toope of Oxford, writing in 1685, has recorded in this connection:157
"About 80 yards from where the bones were found is a temple,158 40 yards diameter, with another 15 yards; round about bones layd so close that scul (skull) toucheth scul. Their feet all round turned towards the temple, one foot below the surface of the ground. At the feet of the first order lay the head of the next row, the feet always tending towards the temple."
Here the stone circle is apparently the symbol of the sun and the "Mecca" from which the good influence or "luck" of the sun emanated and gave protection. One seems to come into touch with the influence of an organized priesthood in this stone circle burial custom.
The more ancient custom of burying the dead so that the influences of the airts might be exercised upon them according to their deserts seems, however, to have been deep-rooted and persistent. In England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland the custom obtained until recently of reserving the north side of a churchyard for suicides and murderers; the "black north" was the proper place for such wrong-doers, who were refused Christian rites of burial, and were interred according to traditional pagan customs. The east was reserved chiefly for ecclesiastics, the south for the upper classes, and the west for the poorer classes. Funeral processions still enter the older churchyards from the east, and proceed in the direction of the sun towards the open graves. Suicides and murderers were carried in the opposite direction ("withershins about").159 The custom of dealing out cards "sunwise", of stirring food "sunwise", and other customs in which turning to the right (the south) is observed, appear to be relics of the ancient belief in the influences of the airts. Some fishermen still consider it unlucky to turn their boats "against the sun". It was anciently believed, as references in old ballads indicate, that a tempest-stricken vessel turned round three times against the sun before it sank. According to a belief that has survival in some parts of the north of Scotland, the devil will appear in the centre of a stone circle if one walks round it three times "against the sun" at midnight. Among the ancient Irish warriors, Professor W. J. Watson tells me, it was a mark of hostile intent to drive round a fort keeping the left hand towards it. The early Christian custom of circulating chapels and dwelling-houses "sunwise" was based on the pagan belief that good influences were conjured in this way.
As the winds were coloured like the airts from which they blew, it was believed that they could be influenced by coloured objects. In his description of the Western Isles, Martin, a seventeenth century writer, referring to the Fladda Chuan Island, relates:
"There is a chapel in the isle dedicated to St. Columba. It has an altar in the east end and therein a blue stone of a round form on it, which is always moist. It is an ordinary custom, when any of the fishermen are detained in the isle by contrary winds, to wash the blue stone with water all round, expecting thereby to procure a favourable wind.... And so great is the regard they have for this stone, that they swear decisive oaths upon it."
Valentine
ONE OF THE GREAT TRI-LITHONS, STONEHENGE
(see page 174)
The moist stone had an indwelling spirit, and was therefore a holy object which made vows and agreements of binding character. In Japan a stone of this kind is called shintai ("god body"). The Gaelic name for a god body is "cuach anama" ("soul shrine", or "spirit-case", or "spirit-husk"). Coich na cno is the shell of a nut. The Chinese believe that moist and coloured stones are the "eggs" of weather-controlling dragons.
The connection between blue and the mother goddess is of great antiquity. Imitation cowries and other shells in blue enamelled terra-cotta have been found in Egyptian graves. Blue was the colour of the "luck stone" of Hathor, the sky and water goddess whose symbols included the cowrie. The Brigantes of ancient Britain had, according to Seneca, blue shields. Shields were connected with the goddess of war. In Gaelic, blue is the luck colour for womens' clothing.160 English and Scottish fishermen still use blue as a mourning colour. When a death takes place, a blue line is painted round a fishing-boat. The desire for protection by invoking the blue goddess probably gave origin to this custom.
As influences came from the coloured airts, so did the great deities and the groups of minor deities associated with them. The god Lugh, for instance, always comes in the old stories from the north-east, while the goddess Morrigan comes from the north-west.161 The fierce wind-raising Scottish goddess of spring comes from the south-west. All over Britain the fairies come from the west and on eddies of wind like the Greek nereids. In Scotland the evil-working giants come from the black north. It was believed that the dead went westward or south-westward towards Paradise. The fact that the axis of Stonehenge circle and avenue points to the north-east is of special interest when we find that the god Lugh, a Celtic Apollo, came from that airt. Either Lugh, or a god like him, may have been invoked to come through the avenue or to send his influence through it, while the priests walked in procession round the circle sunwise. Apparently the south-west part of the circle, with its great trilithons, resembling the portals of the goddess Artemis, was specially consecrated to a goddess like the Scottish Cailleach ("Old Wife") who had herds of wild animals, protected deer from huntsmen, raised storms, and transformed herself into a standing stone. The Gaulish goddess Ro-smerta ("very smeared") is regularly associated with the god identified with Mercury. The god Smertullis is equated with Essus (the war god) by d'Arbois de Jubainville.
The differently coloured winds were divine influences and revealed their characters by their colours. It was apparently because water was impregnated with the influences of the deities that wind and water beliefs were closely associated. Holy and curative wells and sacred rivers and lakes were numerous in ancient Britain and Ireland. Offerings made at wells were offerings made to a deity. These offerings might be gold and silver, as was the case in Gaul, or simply pins of copper. A good many wells are still known as "pin wells" and "penny wells". The metals and pearls and precious stones supposed to contain vital substance were offered to the deities so as to animate them. The images of gods were painted red for the same reason, or sacrifices were offered and their altars drenched with blood. In Ireland children were sacrificed to a god called Crom Cruach and exchanged for milk and corn. As a Gaelic poem records:
Great was the horror and the scare of him.
The ancient doctrines of which faint or fragmentary traces survive in Britain and Ireland may have been similar to those taught by the Druids in Gaul. According to Pomponius Mela, these sages professed to know the secrets of the motions of the heavenly bodies and the will of the gods.162 Strabo's statement that the Druids believed that "human souls and the world were immortal, but that fire and water would sometime prevail" is somewhat obscure. It may be, however, that light is thrown on the underlying doctrine by the evidence given in the next chapter regarding the beliefs that fire, water, and trees were intimately connected with the chief deity.
CHAPTER XV
Why Trees and Wells were Worshipped
Ancient British Idols—Pagan Temples—Animism and Goddess Worship—Trees and Wells connected with Sky—Life Principle in Water—Sacred Berries, Nuts, and Acorns—Parasite as "King of Trees"—Fire-making Beliefs—Tree and Thunder-god—The Sacred Fish—Salmon as form of the Dragon—The Dragon Jewel—Celtic Dragon Myth—The Salmon and the Solar Ring—Polycrates Story—The St. Mungo Legends—Glasgow Coat of Arms—Holy Fire from the Hazel—Hunting the Wren, Robin, and Mouse—Mouse Lore and Mouse Deity—Mouse-Apollo in Britain—Goddess Bride or Brigit—The Brigantian Chief Deity—Goddess of Fire, Healing, Smith-work, and Poetry—Bride's Bird, Tree, and Well—Mythical Serpents—Soul Forms—Souls in Reptiles, Animals, and Trees—Were-animals—The Butterfly Deity—Souls as Butterflies—Souls as Bees—a Hebridean Sea-god.
Gildas, a sixth-century churchman, tells us that the idols in ancient Britain "almost surpassed in number those of Egypt". That he did not refer merely to standing stones, which, as we have seen, were "idols" to the Gaels, is evident from his precise statements that some idols could be seen in his day "mouldering away within or without the deserted temples", and that they had "stiff and deformed features". "Mouldering" suggests wood. Gildas states further that besides worshipping idols the British pagans were wont to pay "divine honour" to hills and wells and rivers. Reference is made in the Life of Columba to a well which was worshipped as a god.
The British temples are referred to also by Pope Gregory the Great, who in a.d. 601 addressed a letter to Abbot Mellitus, then on a mission to England, giving him instructions for the guidance of Augustine of Canterbury. The Pope did not wish to have the heathen buildings destroyed, "for", he wrote, "if those are well constructed, it is requisite that they can be converted from the worship of demons to the service of the true God.... Let the idols that are in them be destroyed."163
The temples in question may have been those erected during the Romano-British period. One which stood at Canterbury was taken possession of by St. Augustine after the conversion of King Ethelbert, who had worshipped idols in it. The Celtic peoples may, however, have had temples before the Roman invasion. At any rate there were temples as well as sacred groves in Gaul. Poseidonius of Apamea refers to a temple at Toulouse which was greatly revered and richly endowed by the gifts of numerous donors. These gifts included "large quantities of gold consecrated to the gods". The Druids crucified human victims who were sacrificed within their temples.
Diodorus Siculus refers as follows to a famous temple in Britain:
"There is in that island a magnificent temple of Apollo and a circular shrine, adorned with votive offerings and tablets with Greek inscriptions suspended by travellers upon the walls. The kings of that city and rulers of the temples are the Boreads who take up the government from each other according to the order of their tribes. The citizens are given up to music, harping and chaunting in honour of the sun."
Some writers have identified this temple with Stonehenge circle. Layamon informs us in his Brute, however, that the temple of Apollo was situated in London. Of course there may have been several temples to this god or the British deity identified with him.
It may be that the stone circles were regarded as temples. It may be, too, that temples constructed of wattles and clay were associated with the circles. In Pope Gregory's letter reference is made to the custom of constructing on festival days "tabernacles of branches of trees around those churches which have been changed from heathen temples", and to the pagan custom of slaying "oxen in sacrifices to demons". Pytheas refers to a temple on an island opposite the mouth of the Loire. This island was inhabited by women only, and once a year they unroofed and reroofed their temple. In the Hebrides the annual custom of unroofing and reroofing thatched houses is not yet obsolete; it may originally have had a religious significance.
Gildas's reference to the worship of hills, wells, and rivers is by some writers regarded as evidence of the existence in ancient Britain of the "primitive belief" in spirits. This stage of religious culture is called Animism (Spiritism). The discovery, however, that a goddess was worshipped in Aurignacian times by the Crô-Magnon peoples in Western Europe suggests that Animistic beliefs were not necessarily as ancient as has been assumed. It may be that what we know as Animism was a product of a later period when there arose somewhat complex ideas about the soul or the various souls in man, and the belief became widespread that souls could not only transform themselves into animal shapes, but could enter statues and gravestones. This conception may have been confused with earlier ideas about stones, shells, &c., being impregnated with "life substance" (the animating principle) derived from the mother goddess. Backward peoples, who adopted complex religious beliefs that had grown up in centres of civilization, may not always have had a complete understanding of their significance. It is difficult to believe that even savages, who adopted the boats invented in Egypt from those peoples that came into touch with them, were always entirely immune to other cultural influences, and retained for thousands of years the beliefs supposed to be appropriate for those who were in the "Stone Age".
Our concern here is with the ancient Britons. It is unnecessary for us to glean evidence from Australia, South America, or Central Africa to ascertain the character of their early religious conceptions and practices. There is sufficient local evidence to show that a definite body of beliefs lay behind their worship of trees, rivers, lakes, wells, standing stones, and of the sun, moon, and stars. Our ancestors do not appear to have worshipped natural objects either because they were beautiful or impressive, but chiefly because they were supposed to contain influences which affected mankind either directly or indirectly. These influences were supposed to be under divine control, and to emanate, in the first place, from one deity or another, or from groups of deities. A god or goddess was worshipped whether his or her influence was good or bad. The deity who sent disease, for instance, was believed to be the controller of disease, and to him or her offerings were made so that a plague might cease. Thus in the Iliad offerings are made to the god Mouse-Apollo, who had caused an epidemic of disease.
Trees and wells were connected with the sky and the heavenly bodies. The deity who caused thunder and lightning had his habitation at times in the oak, the fir, the rowan, the hazel, or some other tree. He was the controller of the elements. There are references in Gaelic charms to "the King of the Elements".
The belief in an intimate connection between a well, a tree, and the sky appears to have been a product of a quaint but not unintelligent process of reasoning.164 The early folk were thinkers, but their reasoning was confined within the limits of their knowledge, and biassed by preconceived ideas. To them water was the source of all life. It fell from the sky as rain, or bubbled up from the underworld to form a well from which a stream flowed. The well was the mother of the stream, and the stream was the mother of the lake. It was believed that the well-water was specially impregnated with the influences that sustained life. The tree that grew beside the well was nourished by it. If this tree was a rowan, its red berries were supposed to contain in concentrated form the animating influence of the deity; the berries cured diseases, and thus renewed youth, or protected those who used them as charms against evil influences. They were luck-berries. If the tree was a hazel, its nuts were similarly efficacious; if an oak, its acorns were regarded likewise as luck-bringers. The parasitic plant that grew on the tree was supposed to be stronger and more influential than the tree itself. This belief, which is so contrary to our way of thinking, is accounted for in an old Gaelic story in which a supernatural being says:
"O man that for Fergus of the feasts dost kindle fire … never burn the King of the Woods. Monarch of Innisfail's forest the woodbine is, whom none may hold captive; no feeble sovereign's effort it is to hug all tough trees in his embrace."
The weakly parasite was thus regarded as being very powerful. That may be the reason why the mistletoe was reverenced, and why its milk-white berries were supposed to have curative and life-prolonging qualities.
Although the sacred parasite was not used for firewood, it served as a fire-producer. Two fire-sticks, one from the soft parasite and one from the hard wood of the tree to which it clung, were rubbed together until sparks issued forth and fell on dry leaves or dry grass. The sparks were blown until a flame sprang up. At this flame of holy fire the people kindled their brands, which they carried to their houses. The house fires were extinguished once a year and relit from the sacred flames. Fire was itself a deity, and the deity was "fed" with fuel. "Need fires" (new fires)165 were kindled at festivals so that cattle and human beings might be charmed against injury. These festivals were held four times a year, and the "new-fire" custom lingers in those districts where New Year's Day, Midsummer, May Day, and Hallowe'en bon-fires are still being regularly kindled.
The fact that fire came from a tree induced the early people to believe that it was connected with lightning, and therefore with the sky god who thundered in the heavens. This god was supposed to wield a thunder-axe or thunder-hammer with which he smote the sky (believed to be solid) or the hills. With his axe or hammer he shaped the "world house".
In Scotland, a goddess, who is remembered as "the old wife",166 was supposed to wield the hammer, or to ride across the sky on a cloud and throw down "fire-balls" that set the woods in flame. Here we find, probably as a result of culture mixing, a fusion of beliefs connected with the thunder god and the mother goddess.
Rain fell when the sky deity sent thunder and lightning. To early man, who took fire from a tree which was nourished by a well, fire and water seemed to be intimately connected.167 The red berries on the sacred tree were supposed to contain fire, or the essence of fire. When he made rowan-berry wine, he regarded it as "fire water" or "the water of life". He drank it, and thus introduced into his blood fire which stimulated him. In his blood was "the vital spark". When he died the blood grew cold, because the "vital spark" had departed from it.
In the water fire lived in another form. Fish were found to be phosphorescent. The fish in the pool was at any rate regarded as a form of the deity who nourished life and was the origin of life. A specially sacred fish was the salmon. It was observed that this fish had red spots, and these were accounted for by the myth that the red berries or nuts from the holy tree dropped into the well and were swallowed by the salmon. The "chief" or "king" of the salmon was called "the salmon of wisdom". If one caught the "salmon of wisdom" and, when roasting it, tasted the first portion of juice that came from its body, one obtained a special instalment of concentrated wisdom, and became a seer, or magician, or Druid.
The salmon was reverenced also because it was a migratory fish. Its comings and goings were regular as the seasons, and seemed to be controlled by the ruler of the elements with whom it was intimately connected. One of its old Gaelic names was orc (pig). It was evidently connected with that animal; the sea-pig was possibly a form of the deity. The porpoise was also an orc.168
Hidden in the well lay a great monster which in Gaelic and Welsh stories is referred to as "the beast", "the serpent", or "the great worm". Ultimately it was identified with the dragon with fiery breath. An Irish story connects the salmon and dragon. It tells that a harper named Cliach, who had the powers of a Druid, kept playing his harp until a lake sprang up. This lake was visited by a goddess and her attendants, who had assumed the forms of beautiful birds. It was called Loch Bél Seád ("lake of the jewel mouth") because pearls were found in it, and Loch Crotto Cliach ("lake of Cliach's harps"). Another name was Loch Bél Dragain ("dragon-mouth lake"), because Ternog's nurse caught "a fiery dragon in the shape of a salmon" and she was induced to throw this salmon into the loch. The early Christian addition to the legend runs: "And it is that dragon that will come in the festival of St. John, near the end of the world, in the reign of Flann Cinaidh. And it is of it and out of it shall grow the fiery bolt which will kill three-fourth of the people of the world."169 Here fire is connected with the salmon.
The salmon which could transform itself into a great monster guarded the tree and its life-giving berries and the treasure offered to the deity of the well. Apparently its own strength was supposed to be derived from or concentrated in the berries. The queen of the district obtained the supernatural power she was supposed to possess from the berries too, and stories are told of a hero who was persuaded to enter the pool and pluck the berries for the queen. He was invariably attacked by the "beast", and, after handing the berries to the queen, he fell down and died. There are several versions of this story. In one version a specially valued gold ring, a symbol of authority, is thrown into the pool and swallowed by the salmon. The hero catches and throws the salmon on to the bank. When he plucks the berries, he is attacked by the monster and kills it. Having recovered the ring, he gives it to the princess, who becomes his wife. Apparently she will be chosen as the next queen, because she has eaten the salmon and obtained the gold symbol.
It may be that this story had its origin in the practice of offering a human sacrifice to the deity of the pool, so that the youth-renewing red berries might be obtained for the queen, the human representative of the deity. Her fate was connected with the ring of gold in which, as in the berries, the influence of the deity was concentrated.
Polycrates of Samos, a Hellenic sea-king, was similarly supposed to have his "luck" connected with a beautiful seal-stone, the most precious of his jewels. On the advice of Pharaoh Amasis of Egypt he flung it into the sea. According to Herodotus, it was to avert his doom that he disposed of the ring. But he could not escape his fate. The jewel came back; it was found a few days later in the stomach of a big fish.
In India, China, and Japan dragons or sea monsters are supposed to have luck pearls which confer great power on those who obtain possession of them. The famous "jewel that grants all desires" and the jewels that control the ebb and flow of tides are obtained from, and are ultimately returned to, sea-monsters of the dragon order.
The British and Irish myths about sacred gold or jewels obtained from the dragon or one of its forms were taken over with much else by the early Christian missionaries, and given a Christian significance. Among the legends attached to the memory of the Irish Saint Moling is one that tells how he obtained treasure for Christian purposes. His fishermen caught a salmon and found in its stomach an ingot of gold. Moling divided the gold into three parts—"one third for the poor, another for the ornamenting of shrines, a third to provide for labour and work".
The most complete form of the ancient myth is, however, found in the life of Glasgow's patron saint, St. Kentigern (St. Mungo). A queen's gold ring had been thrown into the River Clyde, and, as she was unable, when asked by the king, to produce it, she was condemned to death and cast into a dungeon. The queen appealed to St. Kentigern, who instructed her messenger to catch a fish in the river and bring it to him. A large fish "commonly called a salmon" was caught. In its stomach was found the missing ring. The grateful queen, on her release, confessed her sins to the saint and became a Christian. St. Mungo's seal, now the coat of arms of Glasgow, shows the salmon with a ring in its mouth, below an oak tree, in the branches of which sits, as the oracle bird, a robin red-breast. A Christian bell dangles from a branch of the tree.