Here the sea, encompassing Ireland on the north, is called the Hyperborean Ocean;[453] and when we are told that the priests officiating at the round temples of Apollo were called Boreades, we can readily understand the origin of the name, as derived from Boreas, the deity who presided over the north-east wind, to which they offered their vows,—just as we find the Emperor Augustus erecting a temple at Rome, many centuries after, to the wind called Circius.
To this deification of the energies of nature, which, as before affirmed, was but part and parcel of that form of worship called Sabaism, the author of the Book of Enoch has alluded in the following mysterious episode:—
“Then another angel, who proceeded with me, spoke to me; and showed me the first and last secrets in heaven above, and in the depths of the earth: in the extremities of heaven, and in the foundations of it, and in the receptacle of the winds. He showed me how their Spirits were divided; how they were balanced; and how both the springs and the winds were numbered according to the force of the Spirit. He showed me the power of the moon’s light, that its power is a just one; as well as the divisions of the stars, according to their respective names; that every division is divided; that the lightning flashes; that their Host immediately obey; and that a cessation takes place during thunder, in the continuance of its sound. Nor are the thunder and the lightning separated; neither do both of them move with one Spirit; yet are they not separated. For when the lightning lightens, the thunder sounds, and the Spirit, at a proper period, pauses, making an equal division between them; for the receptacle of their times is what sand is. Each of them at a proper season is restrained with a bridle, and turned by the power of the Spirit; which thus propels them according to the spacious extent of the earth.”
Yet beautiful as is the above, it is not much more so than an almost inspired little poem, which appeared some time ago, in one of the public prints, as emanating from the pen of an American lady, named Goold, personifying this element, viz.:—
“We come! we come! and ye feel our might,
As we’re hastening on in our boundless flight;
And over the mountains and over the deep,
Our broad invisible pinions sweep.
Like the Spirit of Liberty, wild and free!
And ye look on our works, and own ’tis we;
Ye call us the winds; but can ye tell
Whither we go, or where we dwell?
Ye mark as we vary our forms of power,
And fell the forest or fan the flower,
When the hare-bell moves, and the rush is bent,
When the tower’s o’erthrown and the oak is rent,
As we waft the bark o’er the slumbering wave,
Or hurry its crew to a watery grave:
And ye say it is we! but can ye trace
The wandering winds to their secret place?
And whether our breath be loud and high,
Or come in a soft and balmy sigh,
Our threat’nings fill the soul with fear,
As our gentle whisperings woo the ear
With music aërial, still ’tis we,
And ye list, and ye look; but what do ye see?
Can ye hush one sound of our voice to peace,
Or waken one note when our numbers cease?
Our dwelling is in th’ Almighty’s hand,
We come and we go at His command;
Though joy or sorrow may mark our track,
His will is our guide, and we look not back;
And if, in our wrath, ye would turn us away,
Or win us in gentlest air to play,
Then lift up your hearts to Him who binds,
Or frees, as He will, the obedient winds!”
And now, as to those “temples” themselves, “of round form,” sacred to Apollo, where will Borlasse in his championship for England, or Rowland in his claims for the island of Anglesea, or Toland and Carte for the little Hebrides isles, find a single vestige of a rotund edifice of antiquated consecration, appertaining to the age which Hecatæus described?—whereas, in Ireland, of the two hundred and upwards, with which its surface was, at one time, adorned, we have not only vestiges of each and all to this day; but, out of the sixty that survive,—after an interval of more than three thousand years standing,—about twenty still display their Grynean devotion and their Hyperborean tranquillity, and are likely so to do for three thousand years more, should this world, or our portion of it, but last so long!
To give soul to the solemnisation of this religious pomp, the Irish have ever cultivated the mysteries of music. The harp more particularly had enlisted the energies of their devotional regard, and their eminence in its management made Hecatæus well observe, that “the inhabitants were almost exclusively harpers.” This was a very suitable accompaniment to their worship of Apollo, who was himself the reputed inventor of this instrument; and accordingly we find that, even in the twelfth century, broken down and obliterated as every vestige of the real Irish then was, by the ungenial amalgamation of the Scythian and Danish intruders, the harp was still preserved as the last remnant of their glory; while the elegance of their compositions and performance upon it extorted this reluctant acknowledgment from the prejudiced Cambrensis:—
“The attention,” says he, “of this people to musical instruments, I find worthy of commendation; their skill in which is, beyond comparison, superior to that of any nation I have seen. For in these the modulation is not slow and solemn, as in the instruments of Britain, to which we are accustomed, but the sounds are rapid and precipitate, yet, at the same time sweet and pleasing. It is wonderful how, in such precipitate rapidity of the fingers, the musical proportions are observed, and, by their art, faultless throughout.
“In the midst of their complicated modulations and most intricate arrangement of notes, by a rapidity so sweet, a regularity so irregular, a concord so discordant, the melody is rendered harmonious and perfect, whether the cords of the diatesseron or diapente are struck together. Yet they always begin in a soft mood, and end in the same, that all may be perfected in the sweetness of delicious sounds. They enter on, and again leave, their modulations with so much subtlety, and the tricklings of the small notes sport with so much freedom under the deep note of the bass; they delight with so much delicacy, and soothe so softly, that the excellency of their art seems to be in concealing it.”[454]
Clarsech and Cruit were both names which the Irish gave their harp, from the musical board and the warbling of the strings respectively. But the favourite designation was that of Orphean, an evident derivation from Orpheus, the divine musician of the ancients, who is said to have stayed the course of rivers, and lulled the listening woods,—to have moved the stones into prescribed positions, and tamed the savage propensities of man—all by the instrumentality of his speaking lyre!