The general belief has its roots in primitive ideas regarding life and its propagation—ideas which some hold to be un-Celtic and un-Aryan. But Aryans were "primitive" at some period of their history, and it would be curious if, while still in a barbarous condition, they had forgotten their old beliefs. In any case, if they adopted similar beliefs from non-Aryan people, this points to no great superiority on their part. Such beliefs originated the idea of rebirth and transmigration.[1230] Nevertheless this was not a characteristically Celtic eschatological belief; that we find in the theory that the dead lived on in the body or assumed a body in another region, probably underground.
Footnote 1193:[(return)]
For textual details see Zimmer, Zeit. für Vergl. Sprach. xxviii. 585 f. The tale is obviously archaic. For a translation see Leahy, i. 8 f.
Footnote 1194:[(return)]
IT i. 134 f.; D'Arbois, v. 22. There is a suggestion in one of the versions of another story, in which Setanta is child of Conchobar and his sister Dechtire.
Footnote 1195:[(return)]
IT iii. 245; RC xv. 465; Nutt-Meyer, ii. 69.
Footnote 1196:[(return)]
Stowe MS. 992, RC vi. 174; IT ii. 210; D'Arbois, v. 3f.
Footnote 1197:[(return)]
IT iii. 393. Cf. the story of the wife of Cormac, who was barren till her mother gave her pottage. Then she had a daughter (RC xxii. 18).
Footnote 1198:[(return)]
Nutt-Meyer, i. 45 f., text and translation.
Footnote 1199:[(return)]
Ibid. 42 f.
Footnote 1200:[(return)]
Ibid. 58. The simultaneous birth formula occurs in many Märchen, though that of the future wife is not common.
Footnote 1201:[(return)]
Nutt-Meyer, i. 52, 57, 85, 87.