Celtic Mythology: History of Celts, Religion, Archeological Finds, Legends & Myths. T. W. Rolleston

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СКАЧАТЬ because its surface was about to be disturbed. When it was rubbed on the body all wishes were gratified; it dispelled fevers and other maladies; it was an antidote against serpents; and it conciliated hearts. A branch of the dried herb used to asperge a banquet-hall made the guests more convivial⁶⁴⁰

The ritual used in gathering these plants—silence, various tabus, ritual purity, sacrifice—is found wherever plants are culled whose virtue lies in this that they are possessed by a spirit. Other plants are still used as charms by modern Celtic peasants, and, in some cases, the ritual of gathering them resembles that described by Pliny.⁶⁴¹ In Irish sagas plants have magical powers. "Fairy herbs" placed in a bath restored beauty to women bathing therein.⁶⁴² During the Táin Cúchulainn's wounds were healed with "balsams and healing herbs of fairy potency," and Diancecht used similar herbs to restore the dead at the battle of Mag-tured.⁶⁴³

607. Sacaze, Inscr. des Pyren. 255; Hirschfeld, Sitzungsberichte (Berlin, 1896), 448.

608. CIL vi. 46; CIR 1654, 1683.

609. D'Arbois, Les Celtes, 52.

610. Lucan, Phar. Usener's ed., 32; Orosius, v. 16. 6; Dio Cass. lxii. 6.

611. Pliny, xvi. 44. The Scholiast on Lucan says that the Druids divined with acorns (Usener, 33).

612. Max. Tyr. Diss. viii. 8; Stokes, RC i. 259.

613. Le Braz, ii. 18.

614. Mr. Chadwick (Jour. Anth. Inst. xxx. 26) connects this high god with thunder, and regards the Celtic Zeus (Taranis, in his opinion) as a thunder-god. The oak was associated with this god because his worshippers dwelt under oaks.

615. Helbig, Die Italiker in der Poebene, 16 f.

616. Mannhardt, Baumkultus; Frazer, Golden Bough² iii. 198.

617. Frazer, loc. cit.

618. Evans, Arch. Rev. i. 327 f.

619. Joyce, SH i. 236.

620. O'Curry, MC i. 213.

621. LL 199b; Rennes Dindsenchas, RC xv. 420.

622. RC xv. 455, xvi. 279; Hennessey, Chron. Scot. 76.

623. Keating, 556; Joyce, PN i. 499.

624. Wood-Martin, ii. 159.

625. D'Arbois, Les Celtes, 51; Jullian, 41.

626. Cook, Folk-Lore, xvii. 60.

627. See Sébillot, i. 293; Le Braz, i. 259; Folk-Lore Journal, v. 218; Folk-Lore Record, 1882.

628. Val. Probus, Comm. in Georgica, ii. 84.

629. Miss Hull, 53; O'Ourry, MS. Mat. 465. Writing tablets, made from each of the trees when they were cut down, sprang together and could not be separated.

630. Stat. Account, iii. 27; Moore, 151; Sébillot, i. 262, 270.

631. Dom Martin, i. 124; Vita S. Eligii, ii. 16.

632. Acta Sanct. (Bolland.), July 31; Sulp. Sever. Vita S. Mart. 457.

633. Grimm, Teut. Myth. 76; Maury, 13, 299. The story of beautiful women found in trees may be connected with the custom of placing images in trees, or with the belief that a goddess might be seen emerging from the tree in which she dwelt.

634. De la Tour, Atlas des Monnaies Gaul, 260, 286; Reinach, Catal. Sommaire, 29.

635. Pliny, HN xvi. 44.

636. See p. 162, supra.

637. See Cameron, Gaelic Names of Plants, 45. In Gregoire de Rostren, Dict. françois-celt. 1732, mistletoe is translated by dour-dero, "oak-water," and is said to be good for several evils.

638. Pliny, xxiv. 11.

639. Ibid.

640. Ibid. xxv. 9.

641. See Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica; De Nore, Coutumes ... des Provinces de France, 150 f.; Sauvé, RC vi. 67, CM ix. 331.

642. O'Grady, ii. 126.

      643. Miss Hull, 172; see p. 77, supra.

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