From Brian’s hand the symbol took:
‘Speed, Malise, speed!’ he said, and gave
The crosslet to his henchman brave.
‘The muster-place be Lanrick mead—
Instant the time—Speed, Malise, speed!’”[722]
“At sight of the Fiery Cross,” says Scott, “every man, from sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best arms and accoutrements, to the place of rendezvous.... During the civil war of 1745-6, the Fiery Cross often made its circuit; and upon one occasion it passed through the whole district of Breadalbane, a tract of thirty-two miles, in three hours.”[723]
BLOOD-DRINKING.
Another item of evidence that the blood-covenant in its primitive form was a well-known rite in primitive Europe, is a citation by Athenæus from Poseidonios to this effect: “Concerning the Germans, Poseidonios says, that they, embracing each other in their banquets, open the veins upon their foreheads,[724] and mixing the flowing blood with their drink, they present it to each other; esteeming it the farthest attainment of friendship, to taste each other’s blood.”[725] As Poseidonios was earlier than our Christian era, this testimony shows that the custom with our ancestors was in no sense an outgrowth, nor yet a perversion, of Christian practices.
In Moore’s Lalla Rookh, the young maiden, Zelica, being induced by Mokanna, the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, to accompany him to the charnel-house, pledged herself to him, body and soul, in a draught of blood.