“Before leaving the house, prayer had to be made to the sacred fire; and on returning, the father must do so even before embracing his wife and children. Thus Agamemnon acted, we are told, on his return from Troy. Sacrifices, libations, wine, oil and victims were regularly offered to the Fire, and as the god brightened up under the oils, all exulted and fell down before him. They believed that he ate and drank, and with more reason than the Jew said this of his Jehovah and El-Shadai. Above all, it was necessary to offer food and wine to him; to ask a blessing before every meal, and return thanks when it was over. From Ovid and Horace we see it was thought pious and proper to sup in presence of the sacred flame, and to make oblations to it. There was no difference between Romans, Greeks, and Hindoos in these respects, except that Soma wine in India took the place of the grape of cooler lands. All alike besought Agni by fervent prayers for increase of flocks and families, for happy lives and serene old age, for wisdom and pardon of sin. We see the great antiquity of this faith in the well-known fact, that even when the early Greeks were sacrificing to Zeus and Athene at Olympia, they always first invoked Agni, precisely as had been ordered in the Vedas some 2,000 years B.C., and probably as he had been invoked many thousands of years before the art of writing was known.”
CHAPTER VI.
Fire-worship in the States of the Mediterranean—Special Sacredness of the public City-fire of Greece and Rome—The sacred Fire of Tlachtga—Ceylon Fire-worship—The Parsees—Persian Monuments—Impiety of Cambyses—Cingalese Terms, Sanscrit, Welsh, &c.—The Yule-log—Fire-worship in England—The Fire of Beltane—Druidical Fires—May-day Fires—November Fires in Ireland—Between Two Fires—Scotland—The Summer Solstice and Fire Ceremonies—Worship of Baal in Ireland—St. John’s Day—Bonfires—Decree of Council of Constantinople.
“All the states of the Mediterranean and Persia had, like India, baptismal forms connected with Fire. With the Greeks and Romans the baptismal ceremony took place between the ninth and twelfth days of birth, and generally commenced by women seizing the infant and running round, or dashing through the fire with it. So also at marriages, fire was the active and ‘covenant god.’ No account was taken of a bride’s faith; to marry was to embrace the husband’s religion, to be to him in filiæ loco, and to break entirely with her own family; nay, marriage was for long entered into with a show of violence, as if to demonstrate the separation. It certainly reminds one of early times when men thus obtained their wives. The principal part of the marriage ceremony was to bring the bride before her husband’s hearth, anoint her with holy water, and make her touch the sacred fire; after which she broke bread or ate a cake with him. Fire was also the God who witnessed the separation of husband and wife, which, if there were offspring, was a rare and difficult act; but if the couple were childless, divorce was an easy matter.”
“No stranger dared appear before the city-fire either in Greece or Rome, indeed the mere look of a person foreign to the worship would profane a sacred act, and disturb the auspices. The very name of strangers was hostis, or enemy to the gods. When the Roman Pontiff had to sacrifice out-of-doors, he veiled his face so that the chance sight of strangers might be thus atoned for to the gods, who were supposed to dislike foreigners so much, that the most laborious ceremonies were undertaken if any of these passed near, not to say handled any holy object. Every sacred fire had to be re-lit if a stranger entered a temple; and so in India, every sacred place must be carefully purified if a foreigner (ruler and highly respected though he may be) pass too close to a Hindoo shrine. I have seen Government servants under me, and Sepoys, who meant no disrespect, throw away the whole of a day’s food, and dig up the little fire-places they had prepared before cooking and eating, because, by accident or oversight, my shadow had passed over it; though sometimes, if there were no onlookers, this extreme measure was not carried out, partly out of regard for me.”
Dr. Keating, in his “History of Ireland,” speaks of the royal seat of Tlachtga, where the Fire Tlachtga was ordained to be kindled. He says:—“The use of this sacred fire was to summon the Priests, the Augurs, and Druids of Ireland to repair thither and assemble upon the Eve of All Saints, in order to consume the sacrifices that were offered to their Pagan Gods; and it was established under the penalty of a great fine, that no other fire should be kindled upon that night throughout the kingdom; so that the fire that was to be used in the country, was to be derived from this holy fire; for which privilege the people were to pay a Scraball, which amounts to threepence every year as an acknowledgment to the King of Munster, because the palace of Tlachtga, where this fire burned, was the proportion taken from the province of Munster, and added to the country of Meath.
“The second royal palace that was erected was in the proportion taken from the province of Conacht, and here was a general convocation assembled of all the inhabitants of the kingdom that were able to appear, which was called the Convocation of Visneach, and kept upon the first day of May, where they offered sacrifices to the principal deity in the island, whom they adored under the name of Beul. Upon this occasion they were used to kindle two fires in every territory in the kingdom, in honour of this pagan god. It was a solemn ceremony at this time to drive a number of cattle of every kind between these fires; this was conceived to be an antidote and a preservation against the murrain, or any other pestilential distemper among cattle for the year following; and from these fires that were made in worship of the god Beul, the day upon which the Christian festival of St. Philip and St. James is observed, is called in the Irish language Beul-tinne. The derivation of the word is thus: La in Irish signifies a day, Beul is the name of the pagan deity, and Teinne is the same with fire in the English, which words, when they are pronounced together, sound La Beultinne.”
Leslie in his “Early Races of Scotland,” says: “From Dondera Head in Ceylon to the Himalaya Mountains, and from the borders of China to the extremities of Western Europe and its islands, we find clear evidence of the former prevalence of the earliest form of false worship, viz., the adoration of light, the sun, and ‘the whole host of heaven.’ In the Rajpoot state of Marwar, in its capital Udayayoor, ‘The City of the Rising Sun!’ the precedence of Surya, the sun god, is still maintained. The sacred standard of the country bears his image, and the Raja, claiming to be his descendant, appears as his representative.”