“And was the chaste Luna in the album sanctorum of your Druidical mythology?” said I.
“Undoubtedly,” said the priest, “we read in the life of our celebrated saint, St. Columba, that on the altar-piece of a Druidical temple, the sun, moon, and stars were curiously depicted; and the form of the ancient Irish oath of allegiance, was to swear by the sun, moon, and stars, and other deities, celestial as well as terrestrial.”
“How,” said I, “did your mythology touch so closely on that of the Greeks? Had you also your Pans and your Daphnes, as well as your Dians and Apollos?”
“Here is a curious anecdote that evinces it,” returned the priest—“It is many years since I read it in a black-letter memoir of St. Patrick. The Saint, says the biographer, attended by three bishops, and some less dignified of his brethren, being in this very province, arose early one morning, and with his pious associates, placed himself near a fountain or well, and began to chant a hymn. In the neighbourhood of this honoured fountain stood the palace of Cruachan, where the two daughters of the Emperor Laogare were educating in retirement; and as the saints sung by no means sotto voce, * their pious strains caught the attention of the royal fair ones, who were enjoying an early ramble, and who immediately sought the sanctified choristers. Full of that curiosity so natural to the youthful recluses, they were by no means sparing of interrogations to the Saint, and among other questions demanded, ‘and who is your God? Where dwells he, in heaven or on the earth, or beneath the earth, or in the mountain, or in the valley, or the sea, or the stream?’—And indeed, even to this day, we have Irish for a river god, which we call Divona.—You perceive, therefore, that our ancient religion was by no means an unpoetical one.”
* A musical voice was an indispensable quality in an Irish
Saint, and “lungs of leather” no trivial requisite towards
obtaining canonization. St. Columbkill, we are told, sung so
loud, that, according to an old Irish poem, called “Amhra
Chioluim chille,” or The Vision of Columbkill, “His hallow’d
voice beyond a mile was heard.”
While we spoke, we observed a figure emerging from a coppice towards a small well, which issued beneath the roots of a blasted oak. The priest motioned us to stop, and be silent—the figure (which was that of an ancient female wrapped in a long cloak,) approached, and having drank of the well out of a little cup, she went three times round it on her knees, praying with great fervency over her beads; then rising after this painful ceremony, she tore a small part of her under garb, and hung it on the branch of the tree which shaded the well.
“This ceremony, I perceive,” said the priest, “surprises you; but you have now witnessed the remains of one of our ancient superstitions. The ancient Irish, like the Greeks, were religiously attached to the consecrated fountain, the Vel expiatoria; and our early missionaries, discovering the fondness of the natives for these sanctified springs, artfully diverted the course of their superstitious faith, and dedicated them to Christian saints.”
“There is really,” said I, “something truly classic in this spot; and here is this little shrine of Christian superstition hung with the same votive gifts as Pausanius informs us obscured the statue of Hygeia in Secyonia.”
“This is nothing extraordinary here,” said the priest; “these consecrated wells are to be found in every part of the kingdom. But of all our Acquo Sanctificato, Lough Derg is the most celebrated. It is the Loretto of Ireland, and votarists from every part of the kingdom resort to it. So great, indeed, is the still-existing veneration among the lower orders for these holy wells, that those who live at too great a distance to make a pilgrimage to one, are content to purchase a species of amulet made of a sliver of the tree which shades the well, (and imbued with its waters,) which they wear round their necks. These curious amulets are sold at fairs, by a species of sturdy beggar, called a Bacagh, who stands with a long pole, with a box fixed at the top of it, for the reception of alms; while he alternately extols the miraculous property of the amulet, and details his own miseries; thus at once endeavouring to interest the faith and charity of the always benevolent, always credulous multitude.”
“Strange,” said I, “that religion in all ages and in all countries should depend so much on the impositions of one half of mankind, and the credulity and indolence of the other. Thus the Egyptians (to whom even Greece herself stood indebted for the principles of those arts and sciences by which she became the most illustrious country in the world) resigned themselves so entirely to the impositions of their priests, as to believe that the safety and happiness of life itself depended on the motions of an ox, or the tameness of a crocodile.”