And that this was epidemic amongst the Irish is proved by Spenser’s testimony, when, drawing a parallel between the Scythians and the Irish of his day, he says: “Also, the Scythians said, that they were once a year turned into wolves; and so it is written of the Irish: though Martin Camden, in a better sense, doth suppose it was a disease, called lycanthropia, so named of the wolf: and yet some of the Irish doe use to make the wolf their gossip.”
Thus it appears, that the Irish were not only acquainted with the nature of this sickness, but also with the knack of taming that animal of which it bore the name. All this was connected with the worship of Apollo, and with Eastern mythology. Nay, the very dogs, for which our country was once famous,[536] and which were destined as protectors against the ravages of the wolf, are clear, from Ctesias, to have had their correspondents in India.
The epithet Lyceus, I conceive, now elucidated; and so leave to yourself to penetrate the rest of those devices. But I shall not, at the same time, take leave of the “Valley of the Two Lakes.”[537]
On one of the loose stones, which remain after this wreck of magnificence, you will see a full delineation of “The history of Dahamsonda, King of Baranes (modern Benares), who, as his name implies, was a zealous lover of religious knowledge; and was incarnated, in order to be tried between his attachment to religion and his zeal for the salvation of the world on the one side, and his love to his own life, and his attachment to his kingdom and wealth, as well as his kindred and friends, on the other; for which purpose the gods had gradually and completely withdrawn the light of religious knowledge from the world by the time of his accession to the throne.”[538]
This king, in his anxiety to regain the lost condition of mankind—to recover their literature and their ancient knowledge of religion, instructs his courtiers to proclaim the offer of a casket of gold, “as a reward to any person” who would instruct his majesty in the mysteries of the Bana,[539] that is, the Budhist Gospel, with a view to its salutary repropagation.
The officers proceeded in quest of such a phenomenon; but, in the extent of their own realms, he was not to be found!
This excites the uneasiness of the king, who “having by degrees increased his offers to thousands and millions of money, high titles, possessions of land and great privileges; and, at last, offering his own throne and kingdom, but still finding no instructor, leaves his court, resolved to become private traveller, and not to rest till he has found one who could communicate to him the desired knowledge. Having for a length of time travelled through many kingdoms, towns, and villages, enduring hardships, he is, at last, by providential interference, led through a delightful valley (which affords him subjects for consideration and recreation of mind) into a dismal forest, the habitation of frightful demons, venomous reptiles, and beasts of prey.
“Sekkraia having on the occasion come down from heaven, in the disguise of a Raksha, meets Bodhesat (the king) in the wilderness, who fearlessly enters into conversation with him, and informs him of the object of his wanderings. The disguised deity undertaking to satisfy the king, if he will sacrifice to him his flesh and blood in exchange for the sacred knowledge, Bodhesat cheerfully ascends a steep rock, shown him by the apparition, and throws himself headlong to the mouth of the Raksha. The king’s zeal being thus proved, Sekkraia, in his own heavenly form, receives him in his arms, as he is precipitating himself from the rock,” and has him initiated in the desired information.[540]
Now, waiving for a moment the latter part of this legend—every word of which, however, is still chronicled in our country, though transferred by the moderns to St. Kevin and the monks—I return to add, that, on the above-mentioned stone, you will see a representation of the ambassadors offering this caske of riches to a professor of letters seated in his “doctor’s chair”!!!
This stone itself is engraved in Ledwich’s Antiquities, where in his ignorance of its meaning, as well as of everything else which formed the subject of his libellous farrago, he perverts it into the bribing of a Roman Catholic priest!—as if the priests would so emblazon themselves!—and quotes Chaucer to prove the fact, when he says of one them, that—