It is of special interest to note that Siret has found evidence to show that the Tree Cult of the Easterners was connected with the early megalithic monuments. The testimony of tradition associates the stone circles, &c., with the Druids. "We are now obliged", he writes[134], "to go back to the theory of the archæologists of a hundred years ago who attributed the megalithic monuments to the Druids. The instinct of our predecessors has been more penetrating than the scientific analysis which has taken its place." In Gaelic, as will be shown, the words for a sacred grove and the shrine within a grove are derived from the same root nem. (See also [Chapter IX] in this connection.)
CHAPTER XIII
The Lore of Charms
The Meaning of "Luck"—Symbolism of Charms—Colour Symbolism—Death as a Change—Food and Charms for the Dead—The Lucky Pearl—Pearl Goddess—Moon as "Pearl of Heaven"—Sky Goddess connected with Pearls, Groves, and Wells—Night-shining Jewels—Pearl and Coral as "Life Givers"—The Morrigan and Morgan le Fay—Goddess Freyja and Jewels—Amber connected with Goddess and Boar—"Soul Substance" in Amber, Jet, Coral, &c.—Enamel as Substitute for Coral, &c.—Precious Metal and Precious Stones—Goddess of Life and Law—Pearl as a Standard of Value in Gaelic Trade.
Our ancestors were greatly concerned about their luck. They consulted oracles to discover what luck was in store for them. To them luck meant everything they most desired—good health, good fortune, an abundant food supply, and protection against drowning, wounds in battle, accidents, and so on. Luck was ensured by performing ceremonies and wearing charms. Some ceremonies were performed round sacred bon-fires (bone fires), when sacrifices were made, at holy wells, in groves, or in stone circles. Charms included precious stones, coloured stones, pearls, and articles of silver, gold, or copper of symbolic shape, or bearing an image or inscription. Mascots, "lucky pigs", &c., are relics of the ancient custom of wearing charms.
The colour as well as the shape of a charm revealed its particular influence. Certain colours are still regarded as being lucky or unlucky ("yellow is forsaken" some say). In ancient times colours meant much to the Britons, as they did to other peoples. This fact is brought out in many tales and customs. A Welsh story, for instance, which refers to the appearance of supernatural beings attired in red and blue, says, "The red on the one part signifies burning, and the blue on the other signifies coldness".[135]
On their persisting belief in luck were based the religious ideas and practices of the ancient Britons. Their chief concern was to protect and prolong life in this world and in the next. When death came it was regarded as "a change". The individual was supposed either to fall asleep, or to be transported in the body to Paradise, or to assume a new form. In Scottish Gaelic one can still hear the phrase chaochail e ("he changed") used to signify that "he died".[136] But after death charms were as necessary as during life. As in Aurignacian times, luck-charms in the form of necklaces, armlets, &c., were placed in the graves of the dead by those who used flint, or bronze, or iron to shape implements and weapons. The dead had to receive nourishment, and clay vessels are invariably found in ancient graves, some of which contain dusty deposits. The writer has seen at Fortrose a deposit in one of these grave urns, which a medical man identified as part of the skeleton of a bird.
Necklaces of shells, of wild animals' teeth, and ornaments of ivory found in Palæolithic graves or burial caves were connected with the belief that they contained the animating influence or "life substance" of the mother goddess. In later times the pearl found in the shell was regarded as being specially sacred.
Venus (Aphrodite) is, in one of her phases, the personification of a pearl, and is lifted from the sea seated on a shell. As a sky deity she was connected with the planet that bears her name[137] and also with the moon. The ancients connected the moon with the pearl. In some languages the moon is the "pearl of heaven". Dante, in his Inferno, refers to the moon as "the eternal pearl". One of the Gaelic names for a pearl is neamhnuid. The root is nem of neamh, and neamh is "heaven", so that the pearl is "a heavenly thing" in Gaelic, as in other ancient languages. It was associated not only with the sky goddess but with the sacred grove in which the goddess was worshipped. The Gaulish name nemeton, of which the root is likewise nem, means "shrine in a grove". In early Christian times in Ireland the name was applied as nemed to a chapel, and in Scottish place-names[138] it survives in the form of neimhidh, "church-land", the Englished forms of which are Navity, near Cromarty, Navaty in Fife, "Rosneath", formerly Rosneveth (the promontory of the nemed), "Dalnavie" (dale of the nemed), "Cnocnavie" (hillock of the nemed), Inchnavie (island of the nemed), &c. The Gauls had a nemetomarus ("great shrine"), and when in Roman times a shrine was dedicated to Augustus it was called Augustonemeton. The root nem is in the Latin word nemus (a grove). It was apparently because the goddess of the grove was the goddess of the sky and of the pearl, and the goddess of battle as well as the goddess of love, that Julius Cæsar made a thanksgiving offering to Venus in her temple at Rome of a corslet of British pearls.
The Irish goddess Nemon was the spouse of the war god Neit. A Roman inscription at Bath refers to the British goddess Nĕmĕtŏna. The Gauls had a goddess of similar name. In Galatia, Asia Minor, the particular tree connected with the sky goddess was the oak, as is shown by the name of their religious centre which was Dru-nemeton ("Oak-grove"). It will be shown in a later chapter that the sacred tree was connected with the sky and the deities of the sky, with the sacred wells and rivers, with the sacred fish, and with the fire, the sun, and lightning. Here it may be noted that the sacred well is connected with the holy grove, the sky, the pearl, and the mother goddess in the Irish place-name Neamhnach (Navnagh),[139] applied to the well from which flows the stream of the Nith. The well is thus, like the pearl, "the heavenly one". The root nem of neamh (heaven) is found in the name of St. Brendan's mother, who was called Neamhnat (Navnat), which means "little" or "dear heavenly one". In neamhan ("raven" and "crow") the bird form of the deity is enshrined.