“He would suffer, for a quart of wine,
A good fellow to have his concubine”!
How inconsistent is error! Elsewhere this Reverend Doctor has asserted, and, accidentally, with truth, that there was no such thing at all to be met with at this place, as “Christian symbols.” I wonder was he one of those who consider Roman Catholics not to be Christians?
However, again from this he diverges! And, when called upon to decipher the hieroglyphics upon a stone-roofed Tuath-de-danaan chapel, of the same character as that at Knockmoy, and discovered here a few years ago, beneath the Christian piles which the early missionaries had built over it, by way of supersedence, he throws himself, in his embarrassment, into the arms of St. Kevin! associates him with the whole! and that, too, after he had fatigued himself, until half choked with spleen, in bellowing out the ideality and utter non-existence of such a personage!
On the front of the cathedral erected out of the fragments of the Tuath-de-danaan dilapidations, you will find Budha embracing the sacred tree, known in our registries, by the name of Aithair Faodha, which signifies literally the tree of Budha.[541]
The pomegranate of Astarte—the medicinal apple of affection[542]—presents itself, also, in the foliage! The mouldings upon the arch of the western window refer likewise to her. And, to complete the union of Sabian symbolisation, the serpent mingles in the general tale! while the traditional story of the adjoining lake having been infested by the presence of that reptile, has a faithful parallel in one of the lakes of Syria!
Will it not be believed, therefore, that the valley at which Dohamsonda had alighted, after he had traversed many realms far away from his own, was that of Glendalough? And where, I ask, would he be more likely to obtain the object of his peregrination, viz. initiation into gospel truth, than in that country which, from its pre-eminent effulgence in its beatitudes, was exclusively denominated the Gospel-land?
This, sir, is no rhetoric,—no declamatory exaggeration. I will reduce it for you, in its simple elements, to the perspicuity of vision.
Bana-ba is one of the names of our sacred island, which, like all the rest of our history, has been heretofore a mystery to literary inquirers!
The light bursts upon you!—does it not already? Need I proceed to separate for you the constituent parts of this word?
It is compounded, then, be it known, of Bana, which indicates good tidings, or gospel, and aba, land—meaning, in the aggregate, the Gospel-land! And accordingly the pilgrim, when he set out upon his journey in quest of the Bana, very naturally betook himself to Bana-ba, or the land of the Bana, where alone it was to be found!