First, therefore, for opinions; and we may go to the ancients and then to the moderns. Here are a few from Julius Caesar:—‘In particular they (the Druids) wish to inculcate this idea, that souls do not die, but pass from one body to another.’[377] ‘The Gauls declare that they have all sprung from their father Dis (or Pluto), and this they say was delivered to them by the Druids.’[377] And the testimony of Caesar is confirmed by Diodorus Siculus,[378] and by Pomponius Mela.[379] Lucan, in the Pharsalia,[380] addressing the Druids on their doctrine of re-birth says:—‘If you know what you sing, death is the centre of a long life.’ And again in the same passage he observes:—‘Happy the folk upon whom the Bear looks down, happy in this error, whom of fears the greatest moves not, the dread of death. Hence their warrior’s heart hurls them against the steel, hence their ready welcome of death, and the thought that it were a coward’s part to grudge a life sure of its return.’[381] Dr. Douglas Hyde, in his Literary History of Ireland (p. 95), speaking for the Irish people, says of the re-birth doctrine:—‘... the idea of re-birth which forms part of half a dozen existing Irish sagas, was perfectly familiar to the Irish Gael....’ According to another modern Celtic authority, D’Arbois de Jubainville, two chief Celtic doctrines or beliefs were the return of the ghosts of the dead and the re-birth of the same individuality in a new human body here on this planet.[382]
Reincarnation of the Tuatha De Danann
We proceed now directly to show that there was also a belief, probably widespread, among the ancient Irish that divine personages, national heroes who are members of the Tuatha De Danann or Sidhe race, and great men, can be reincarnated, that is to say, can descend to this plane of existence and be as mortals more than once. This aspect of the Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth has been clearly set forth by the publications of such eminent Celtic folk-lorists as Alfred Nutt and Miss Eleanor Hull. Miss Hull, in her study of Old Irish Tabus, or Gesa,[383] referring to the Cuchulainn Cycle of Irish literature and mythology, writes thus:—‘There is no doubt that all the chief personages of this cycle were regarded as the direct descendants, or it would be more correct to say, as avatars or reincarnations of the early gods. Not only are their pedigrees traced up to the Tuatha Dé Danann, but there are indications in the birth-stories of nearly all the principal personages that they are looked upon simply as divine beings reborn on the human plane of life. These indications are mysterious, and most of the tales which deal with them show signs of having been altered, perhaps intentionally, by the Christian transcribers. The doctrine of re-birth was naturally not one acceptable to them.... The goddess Etain becomes the mortal wife of a king of Ireland.... Conchobhar, moreover, is spoken of as a terrestrial god;[384] and Dechtire, his sister, and the mother of Cúchulainn, is called a goddess.[385] In the case of Cúchulainn himself, it is distinctly noted that he is the avatar of Lugh lamhfada (long-hand), the sun-deity[386] of the earliest cycle. Lugh appears to Dechtire, the mother of Cúchulainn, and tells her that he himself is her little child, i. e. that the child is a reincarnation of himself; and Cúchulainn, when inquired of as to his birth, points proudly to his descent from Lugh. When, too, it is proposed to find a wife for the hero, the reason assigned is, that they knew “that his re-birth would be of himself” (i. e. that only from himself could another such as he have origin).’[387] We have in this last a clue to the popular Irish belief regarding the re-birth of beings of a god-like nature. D’Arbois de Jubainville has shown,[388] also, that the grandfather of Cuchulainn, son of Sualtaim, was from the country of the Sidhe, and so was Ethné Ingubé, the sister of Sualtaim. And Dechtire, the mother of Cuchulainn, was the daughter of the Druid Cathba and the brother of King Conchobhar. Thus the ancestry of the great hero of the Red Branch Knights of Ulster is both royal and divine. And Conall Cernach, Cuchulainn’s comrade and avenger, apparently from a tale in the Cóir Anmann (Fitness of Names), composed probably during the twelfth century, was also a reincarnated Tuatha De Danann hero.[389]
Practically all the extant manuscripts dealing with the ancient literature and mythology of the Gaels were written by Christian scribes or else copied by them from older manuscripts, so that, as Miss Hull points out, what few Irish re-birth stories have come down to us—and they are probably but remnants of an extensive re-birth literature like that of India—have been more or less altered. Yet to these scholarly scribes of the early monastic schools, who kept alive the sacred fire of learning while their own country was being plundered by foreign invaders and the rest of mediaeval Europe plunged in warfare, the world owes a debt of gratitude; for to their efforts alone, in spite of a reshaping of matter naturally to be expected, is due almost everything recorded on parchments concerning pagan Ireland.
The Re-birth Story Concerning King Mongan
We have preserved to us a remarkable re-birth story in which the characters are known to be historical.[390] It concerns a quarrel between the king of Ulster, Mongan, son of Fiachna—who, according to the Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters (i. 245), was killed in A. D. 620 by Arthur, son of Bicor—and Forgoll, the poet of Mongan.[391] The dispute between them was as to the place of the death of Fothad Airgdech, a king of Ireland who was killed by Cailte, one of the warriors of Find, in a battle whose date is fixed by the Four Masters in A. D. 285.[392] Forgoll pretended that Fothad had been killed at Duffry, in Leinster, and Mongan asserted that it was on the river Larne (anciently Ollarba) in County Antrim. Enraged at being contradicted, even though it were by the king, Forgoll threatened Mongan with terrible incantations; and it was agreed that unless Mongan proved his assertion within three days, his queen should pass under the control of Forgoll. Mongan, however, had spoken truly and with certain secret knowledge, and felt sure of winning.
When the third day was almost expired and Forgoll had presented himself ready to claim the wager, there was heard coming in the distance the one whom Mongan awaited. It was Cailte himself, come from the Otherworld to bear testimony to the truthfulness of the king and to confound the audacious presumptions of the poet Forgoll. It was evening when he reached the palace. The king Mongan was seated on his throne, and the queen at his right full of fear about the outcome, and in front stood the poet Forgoll claiming the wager. No one knew the strange warrior as he entered the court, save the king.
Cailte, when fully informed of the quarrel and the wager, quickly announced so that all heard him distinctly, ‘The poet has lied!’ ‘You will regret those words,’ replied the poet. ‘What you say does not well become you,’ responded Cailte in turn, ‘for I will prove what I say.’ And straightway Cailte revealed this strange secret: that he had been one of the companions in arms under the great warrior Find, who was also his teacher, and that Mongan, the king before whom he spoke, was the reincarnation of Find:—
‘We were with thee,’ said Cailte, addressing the king. ‘We were with Find.’ ‘Know, however,’ replied Mongan, ‘that you do wrong in revealing a secret.’ But the warrior continued: ‘We were therefore with Find. We came from Scotland. We encountered Fothad Airgdech near here, on the shores of the Ollarba. We gave him furious battle. I cast my spear at him in such a manner that it passed through his body, and the iron point, detaching itself from the staff, became fixed in the earth on the other side of Fothad. Behold here [in my hand] the shaft of that spear. There will be found the bare rock from the top of which I let fly my weapon. There will be found a little further to the east the iron point sunken in the earth. There will be found again a little further, always to the east, the tomb of Fothad Airgdech. A coffin of stone covers his body; his two bracelets of silver, his two arm-rings, and his neck-torque of silver are in the coffin. Above the tomb rises a pillar-stone, and on the upper extremity of that stone which is planted in the earth one may read an inscription in ogam: Here reposes Fothad Airgdech; he was fighting against Find when Cailte slew him.’
And to the consternation of Forgoll, what this warrior who came from the Otherworld declared was true, for there were found the place indicated by him, the rock, the spear-head, the pillar-stone, the inscription, the coffin of stone, the body in it, and the jewellery. Thus Mongan gained the wager; and the secret of his life which he alone had known was revealed—he was Find re-born[393]; and Cailte, his old pupil and warrior-companion, had come from the land of the dead to aid him[393]:—‘It was Cailte, Find’s foster-son, that had come to them. Mongan, however, was Find, though he would not let it be told.’[393] But not only was Mongan an Irish king, he was also a god, the son of the Tuatha De Danann Manannan Mac Lir: ‘this Mongan is a son of Manannan Mac Lir, though he is called Mongan, son of Fiachna.’[394] And so it is that long after their conquest the People of the Goddess Dana ruled their conquerors, for they took upon themselves human bodies, being born as the children of the kings of Mil’s Sons.