[775]. M. Martin’s “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in Pinkerton’s Voyages and Travels, iii. 611. The first edition of Martin’s work was published in 1703, and the second in 1716.
[776]. J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed., i. 504.
[777]. E. Casalis, The Basutos, pp. 267 sq.
[778]. Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquit. Rom. ii. 68; Valerius Maximus, i. 1. 7.
[779]. J. Lecœur, Esquisses du Bocage Normand, ii. (Condé-sur-Noireau, 1887) p. 27; B. Souché, Croyances, présages et traditions diverses (Niort, 1880), p. 12.
[780]. Polybius, xii. 13. In Darfur a curious power over fire is ascribed to women who have been faithful to their husbands. “It is a belief among the Forians, that if the city takes fire, the only means of arresting the progress of the flames is to bring near them a woman, no longer young, who has never been guilty of intrigue. If she be pure, by merely waving a mantle, she puts a stop to the destruction. Success has sometimes rewarded a virtuous woman” (Travels of an Arab Merchant [Mohammed Ibn-Omar El-Tounsy] in Soudan, abridged from the French by Bayle St. John (London, 1854), p. 112). Compare R. W. Felkin, “Notes on the For Tribe of Central Africa,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xiii. (1884-1886) p. 230.
[781]. Solinus, xxii. 10. The Celtic Minerva, according to Caesar (De bello Gallico, vi. 17), was a goddess of the mechanical arts.
[782]. J. Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, pp. 73-77; P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, i. 260 sq.
[783]. Giraldus Cambrensis, The Topography of Ireland, chaps. xxxiv.-xxxvi., translated by Thomas Wright; P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, i. 334 sq. It is said that in the island of Sena (the modern Sein), off the coast of Brittany, there was an oracle of a Gallic deity whose worship was cared for by nine virgin priestesses. They could raise storms by their incantations, and turn themselves into any animals they pleased (Mela, iii. 48); but it is not said that they maintained a perpetual holy fire, though Ch. Elton affirms that they did (Origins of English History, p. 27). M. Salomon Reinach dismisses these virgins as a fable based on Homer’s description of the isle of Circe (Odyssey, x. 135 sqq.), and he denies that the Gauls employed virgin priestesses. See his article, “Les Vierges de Sena,” Revue Celtique, xviii. (1897) pp. 1-8; id., Cultes, mythes, et religions, i. (Paris, 1905) pp. 195 sqq. To me the nuns of St. Brigit seem to be most probably the successors of a Celtic order of Vestals. That there were female Druids is certain, but it does not appear whether they were virgins. See Lampridius, Alexander Severus, 60; Vopiscus, Aurelianus, 44; id., Numerianus, 14 sq.
[784]. Prof. Vl. Titelbach, “Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, xiii. (1900) p. 1.