As to the local phenomenon, to which you perceive he can have no pretensions, I cannot resist bestowing upon it a passing observation. Bede, I think, has gone so far as to say that not only are there no snakes to be found in Ireland, but that they would not live, if imported: nay, that, when brought within sight of the shore, they expire! I should like to see this ascertained; if the fact be such, then the question is solved, the air or the soil is the cause.
But if the case be otherwise, then must we ascribe it to some human instrumentality; and, as there occur various texts in Scripture, allusive, it would seem, to a very prevailing opinion in the East, as to the manageableness of that species, by the power of charms,—such as, “I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed” (Jer. viii. 17); and “the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely” (Ps. lvii. 4, 5);—and as our Tuath-de-danaans, who were an Eastern people, are recorded by all our early ecclesiastical writers, and with no view to encomium, as so eminent for incantations, that the island seemed, during their sway, to have been one continuation of enchantment, it is past doubt, that, if practicable by man’s efficacy at all, the merit of extinction belongs solely to them. And it is well worth notice, that the island of Crete, where a colony of them also had settled, is said to be gifted with a similar exemption. “The professed snake-catchers in India,” says Johnson, “are a low caste of Hindoos, wonderfully clever in catching snakes, as well as in practising the art of legerdemain; they pretend to draw them from their holes by a song, and by an instrument resembling an Irish bagpipe, on which they play a plaintive tune.”[415]
Every legend, however, is founded upon reality, and I will unfold to you from what has Joceline concocted this about St. Patrick. All the crosses of the Tuath-de-danaans had snakes engraved upon them. Look back at that at Killcullen,[416] and you will see them there still, and more plainly, by and by, upon that at Kells. These to the Irish were objects of reverence, because of the passions which they symbolised; and accordingly the Saint, in order to obviate the recurrence of such contemplations, effaced them, when practicable, from off the stones.[417]
The same precisely was the course, but with a less hallowed intention, which the Moslems had pursued in the dissemination of their creed. “Whenever,” says Archer, “these figures were introduced, the fanatic Moslem had hammered away all those within his reach; and when this process was too slow for the work of demolition, another mode of obliteration was requisite. Whole compartments of sculpture were plastered over to hide the profane imagery! In clearing away the rubbish, to bring these beautiful remains to light, the engineer stumbled on a long frieze, part of which had had the destroying mallet passed over it; but this method of despatch was not active enough, and that portion which had escaped violence, had been plastered over with a composition of the colour of the stone.”[418]
We read also in the Puranas, as an historical circumstance, that the whole serpent race had been destroyed by Janamijaya, the son of Parieshit, which, in truth, only implies, as the talented professor of Sanscrit in Oxford University has already remarked, “the subversion of the local and original superstition, and the erection of the system of the Vedas upon its ruins.”
St. Patrick, in like manner, having established Christianity here, in supercedence of a religion, the most prominent symbols of which were snakes, cockatrices, and serpents, may be truly said to have extirpated their race from the country, but, as you see, in an acceptation heretofore unexplained.
The statement given by Major Archer of the symbolic representations upon one of the Indian temples, as well as the particulars of its fate, are so perfectly in unison with what I have been describing, that I must be excused if I give it a place here.
“Reached Burwah-Saugor,” says he. “Immediately on the right is a Hindoo temple, which I think one of the rarest sights, on the score of architecture and sculpture, which have gratified our curiosity. The work of the chisel would have immortalised the artist had he lived in the present day. I have never seen its execution rivalled, although tolerably conversant with similar objects of art. The elegance of design—the arrangement of the figures, which were too numerous to be computed—the position of them—the sharp and bold relief—and the elaborate ornaments of foliage and animals, render it one of the most remarkable monuments of art it is possible to conceive. There are compartments on the lintels of the doors and the entablature, four deep; figures of the subordinate deities in the voluminous code of Brahma, symbols of their attributes, sacred utensils, and animals. Two vases are on the threshold, which, for shape and execution, would compete the palm of excellence with Grecian art. Wreaths of snakes, and groups of men and women, are on the columns, which also have their ornaments, and are well proportioned.
“I could not resist a second visit to this edifice, which, at the risk of appearing opinionative, I can seriously aver, I never saw equalled for richness and taste; but the hand of intolerant bigotry has marred the work of fair proportion. The fanatical Moslems, who overran the country in the time of Acbar, broke and defaced every image they saw; and, with few exceptions, the head of every figure, of any size or importance, has been demolished; and nothing remains but relics, which attest the advance of the arts at the time the structure was reared.”
The effects of fanaticism are the same in all ages. It desecrates alike human and divine laws. St. Patrick was no fanatic; and accordingly, in his course, what he could not himself comprehend, he was resolved, at all events, to have respected. Those crosses, therefore, which had previously been looked upon with an eye of veneration, though the cause had long ceased to be transmitted, he literally Christianised, by removing the sculpture; and thus were they made, in the ritual of the new religion, as hallowedly expressive as they were ever before.