God and all goodness.
Some have supposed that Druidism learned its secrets from the Persian Magi, others that the Magi learnt from Druidism. Pliny, speaking of the vanities of Magiism or Magic, recorded that “Britain celebrates them to-day with such ceremonies it might seem possible that she taught Magic to the Persians”. In Persian philosophy the trinity of Goodness was Good Thought, Good Deed, and Good Word, and in Britain these Three Graces were symbolised by the three Golden Berries of the Mistletoe or Golden Bough. They figure alternatively as Three Golden Balls or Apples growing on a crystal tree. The Mistletoe—sacred alike in Persia and in Britain—was worshipped as the All-Heal, and it was termed the Ethereal Plant, because alone among the vegetable creation it springs etherially in mid-air, and not from earth. Among the adventures of Prince Conneda of Connaught—the young and lovely son of Great and Good King Conn and Queen Eda—was a certain quest involving the most strenuous seeking. Aided by a Druid, the youthful Conneda carried with him a small bottle of extracted All-Heal, and was led forward by a magic ball, which rolled ever in advance. The story (or rather allegory, for it is obviously such) tells us that the Three Golden Apples were plucked from the Crystal Tree in the midst of the pleasure garden, and deposited by Conneda in his bosom. On returning home Conneda planted the Three Golden Apples in his garden, and instantly a great tree bearing similar fruit sprang up. This tree caused all the district to produce an exuberance of crops and fruits, so that the neighbourhood became as fertile and plentiful as the dominion of the Firbolgs, in consequence of the extraordinary powers possessed by the Golden Fruit.[190]
The trefoil or shamrock (figured constantly in Crete) was another symbol of the Three in One, and I have little doubt that at Tara there once existed a picture of St. Patrick holding this almost world-wide emblem. Tara is the same word as tri or three and in Faërie this number is similarly sacred. The Irish used to march in battle in threes, the Celtic mairae or fairy mothers were generally figured in groups of three, and the gown of the Fairy Queen is said to have been—
Of pansy, pink, and primrose leaves,
Most curiously laid on in threaves.[191]
The word shamrock in Persian is shamrakh, and three to four thousand years ago a Persian poet hymned: “We worship the pure, the Lord of purity. We worship the universe of the true spirit, visible, invisible, and all that sustains the welfare of the good creation. We praise all good thoughts, all good words, all good deeds, which are and will be, and keep pure all that is good. Thou true and happy Being! we strive to think, to speak, to do only what, of all actions, may promote the two lives, the body and the mind. We beseech the spirit of earth, by means of these best works (agriculture) to grant us beautiful and fertile fields, for believer and unbeliever, for rich and poor. We worship the Wise One who formed and furthered the spirit of the earth. We worship Him with our bodies and souls. We worship Him as being united with the spirits of pure men and women. We worship the promotion of all good, all that is very beautiful, shining, immortal, bright, everything that is good.”
The alleged author of this invocation to the God of Goodness and Beauty lived certainly as early as 1200 B.C., some think 2000 B.C.: the hymn itself was collected into its present canon during the fourth century of this era, but, like the British Triads and all other Bardic lore, it is supposed to have been long orally preserved. It is perfectly legitimate to compare the literature of Ancient Persia with that of Britain, for the religious systems of the two countries were admittedly almost identical; and until recently Persia was the most generally accepted cradle of the Aryans.
It is impossible to suppose that the earliest compilers and transcribers of the British Triads had access to the MSS. of the hymn just quoted; yet while Persian tradition records, “We worship the promotion of all good, all that is very beautiful, shining, immortal, bright, everything that is good,” the British Bards seemingly worshipped the promotion of all good, in fact the Three Ultimate Objects of Bardism are on record as being “to reform morals and customs; to secure peace and praise everything that is good and excellent”.
British literature, British folklore, and British custom, all alike refute Max Müller’s preposterous supposition that the equation God = Good is “far too modern, too abstract, too Christian,” and there is manifestly some evidence in favour of the probability that Giant Albion was worshipped as the Holy Good and the All Good. There is no known tribe of savages that is destitute of some code of ethics, and it is seemingly a world-wide paradox that spiritual wisdom and low civilisation can, and often do, exist concurrently. Side by side with the childish notions of modern savages, one finds, not infrequently, what Andrew Lang termed, “astonishing metaphysical hymns about the first stirrings of light in darkness, of becoming, of being, which remind us of Hegel and Heraclitus”.[192] The sacred Books of Christendom emanated from one of the crudest and least cultivated of all the subject races of the Roman Empire. It is self-evident that the Hebrews were a predatory and semi-savage tribe who conceived their Divinity as vengeful, cursing, swearing, vomiting, his fury coming up into his face, and his nostrils smoking; nevertheless, as in the Psalms and elsewhere, are some of the noblest and most lofty conceptions of Holiness and Beauty.
As a remarkable instance of this seeming universal paradox, one may refer to Micah, a Hebrew, whose work first appeared in writing about 300 b.c. There is in Micah some of the best philosophy ever penned, yet the status of the tribe among whom he lived and to whom he addressed himself, was barbarous and brutal. Of this, an example is found in Chapter III, where the prophet writes: “And I said, Hear I pray you, O heads of Jacob and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgement? who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin off them, and their flesh from off their bones; who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron”.