The sacred fire of Tara (Tamhair-na-Righ, Tara of the Kings) was only lit every three years, and then with great ceremony. The sun’s rays were concentrated by means of a brazen lens, on some pieces of dried wood, and from this alone were all the sacred fires in Ireland kindled in the holy places.
At the present time, if a peasant has to light a fire in the house on May morning, which does not often happen, as the custom is to keep the fire burning all night, a lighted sod taken from the priest’s house is esteemed of great virtue and sacredness, just as in old time a lighted brand from the altar of Baal was used to light the domestic fire.
The sacred fire was also obtained from the friction of wood, or the striking of stones; and it was supposed that the spirits of fire dwelt in these objects, and when the priest invoked them to appear, they brought good luck to the household for the coming year; but if invoked by other hands on that special day their influence was malific.
The migration of races can be clearly traced by their superstitions. The oldest seem to have come from Persia and Egypt; while mutilated, though still authentic portions of the old-world ritual can still be found all along the Mediterranean, marking the westward progress of the primitive nations, till the last wave found a resting-place on our own far-distant shores, washed by the waters of the Atlantic.
Assyria was the teacher of Egypt; Egypt of Greece; and Greece of Europe; and little seems to have been lost during the progress of sixty centuries. The old myths still remain at the base of all thought and all creeds; broken fragments of the primal faith; shadowy traditions of some great human life that once was real and actual, or of some great event that changed the destiny of nations, and the echo of which still vibrates through the legends, the songs, the poetry, and the usages of every people on the face of the earth.
Persia, Egypt, India, the Teuton, and the Celt, have all the same primal ideas in their mythology, and the same instincts of superstition; and the signs to which past ages have given a mystic meaning still come to us laden with a fateful significance, even in this advanced era of culture and the triumph of reason.
We still cannot help believing that prophecies come in the night, for the mystical and prophetic nature of dreams is confirmed by the personal experience of almost every human being; and few are found brave enough, even amongst the educated classes, lightly to break through a traditional usage on which all the ages have set the seal of good or ill luck.
Superstition, or the belief in unseen, mysterious, spiritual influences, is an instinct of human nature. A vague, shadowy, formless belief, certainly, yet ineradicable. We feel that our dual humanity, the material as well as the psychical, holds some strange and mystic relation with an unseen spiritual world, though we cannot define the limits, nor bring it under a law.
Before the written word existed, the people strove to express their creed and history in symbols. Divine nations, like the Greeks, made the symbols beautiful, and these the uncultured tribes may afterwards have distorted into grotesque and rude imitations; but the same idea can be traced through all forms by which humanity has tried to represent history, nature, and God.
And the old Pagan customs of the early world seem to have an enduring vitality, and to have become fixed, even in the usages of the enlightened nineteenth century. The Persian Magi and the Druid priest exacted a tribute of the firstlings of the flock as a burnt-offering to the Sun-god on the day of his festival; so in modern times, we sacrifice a lamb at Easter and an ox at Christmas, retaining the pagan rite while we honour the Christian legend. The Christmas-tree is still lighted to guide the Sun-god back to life; and the spotted cake, anciently made in his honour, of corn and fruit, still finds its place on our tables, as the plum pudding of civilization, even as its primitive prototype was laid on the sacred altars of the Persians as an offering of gratitude to the Lord of Light and Life.