[9] See Strabo, iii. 165, and Diodorus, v. 14. [↑]
[10] For some more detailed remarks on the reckoning of descent by birth, see The Welsh People, pp. 36 et seq. [↑]
[11] In Welsh eli means ‘ointment,’ probably so called from spells pronounced over it when used as a remedy. In the Twrch Trwyth story (Oxford Mabinogion, p. 138) one of Arthur’s men bears the curious designation of Reidỽn uab Eli Atuer, which might be Englished ‘R. son of the Restoring Ointment,’ unless one should rather say ‘of the Restoring Enchantment.’ [↑]
[12] See the Book of the Dun Cow, fo. 128b, and Windisch’s Irische Texte, pp. 138–9. The rebirth of Lug as Cúchulainn has been touched upon in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 431; but since then the whole question of rebirth has been discussed at length in Nutt and Meyer’s volumes entitled The Voyage of Bran (London, 1895). [↑]
[13] Tylor’s Primitive Culture, ii. 4, where he gives a reference to Gustav Klemm’s Culturgeschichte, iii. 77, and Klemm’s authority proves to be Jessen, whose notes are given in a ‘tractatus’ bound with Knud Leem De Lapponibus Finmarchiæ (Copenhagen, 1767): Jessen’s words in point read as follows, p. 33:—Et baptismum quidem, quem ipsi Laugo, i. e. lavacrum appellabant, quod attinet, observandum occurrit, fœminam Lapponicam, jam partui vicinam, atque in eo statu Sarakkæ impensius commendatam, de nomine, nascituro infanti imponendo, per insomnia plerumque a Jabmekio quodam admonitam fuisse et simul de Jabmekio illo, qui, ut ipsi quidem loqui amarunt, in hoc puero resuscitandus foret, edoctam. Hujusmodi per insomnia factas admonitiones niëgost nuncuparunt Lappones. Si gravida mulier a Jabmekio hac ratione edocta non fuerit, recens nati infantis vel parenti vel cognatis incubuit, per τὸ Myran, in tympano, securi vel balteo susceptum, vel etiam Noaaidum consulendo, explorare, quo potissimum nomine infans appellandus esset. In the body of Leem’s work, p. 497, one reads, that if the child sickens or cries after baptism, this is taken to prove that the right ancestor has not been found; but as he must be discovered and his name imposed on the child, resort is had to a fresh baptism to correct the effects of the previous one. [↑]
[14] See Holder’s Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, s. v. Lugus; also the index to my Hibbert Lectures, s. v. Ỻeu, Lug, Lugoves. [↑]
[15] For more on this subject see the chapter on the Pictish question in The Welsh People, pp. 36–74. [↑]
[16] It is right to say that the story represents the fairies as living under the rule of a rí, a title usually rendered by ‘king’; but rí (genitive rig) was probably at one time applicable to either sex, just as we find Gaulish names like Biturix and Visurix borne by women. The wonder, however, is that such a line as that just quoted has not been edited out of the verses long ago, just as one misses any equivalent for it in Joyce’s English expansion of the story in his Old Celtic Romances, pp. 106–11. Compare, however, the Land of the Women in the Voyage of Maildun (Joyce, pp. 152–6), and in Meyer and Nutt’s Voyage of Bran, i. 30–3. [↑]
[17] This conclusion has been given in a note at the foot of p. 37 of The Welsh People; but for a variety of instances to illustrate it see Hartland’s chapters on Supernatural Birth in his Legend of Perseus. [↑]
[18] See Frazer’s article on ‘The Origin of Totemism’ in the Fortnightly Review for April, 1899, p. 649. The passage to which it refers will be found at p. 265 of Spencer and Gillen’s volume, where one reads as follows:—‘Added to this we have amongst the Arunta, Luritcha, and Ilpirra tribes, and probably also amongst others such as the Warramunga, the idea firmly held that the child is not the direct result of intercourse, that it may come without this, which merely, as it were, prepares the mother for the reception and birth also of an already-formed spirit child who inhabits one of the local totem centres. Time after time we have questioned them on this point, and always received the reply that the child was not the direct result of intercourse.’ It is curious to note how readily the Australian notion here presented would develop into that of the Lapps, as given at p. 658 from Jessen’s notes. [↑]