The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries

by W. Y. Evans-Wentz

New Grange and Celtic Mysteries

Though, as Professor J. Loth and other eminent archaeologists hold, all tumuli containing chambers, and all allées couvertes of dolmens, should be considered as designedly funereal in their purposes, nevertheless certain of the greater ones, like New Grange and Gavrinis may also properly be considered as places for rendering worship or even sacrifice to the dead, and, perhaps, as places for religious pilgrimages and sacred rites. This, too, seems to be the opinion of M. J. Déchelette in his work on Celtic and Gallo-Roman archaeology, as he traces from the earliest prehistoric times in Europe the evolution of the cult of the dead according to the evidence furnished by the ancient megalithic monuments.[462]

To begin with, let us take as a type for our study the most famous of all so-called Celtic tumuli, that of New Grange, on the River Boyne in Ireland.[463] In Irish literature New Grange is constantly associated with the Tuatha De Danann as one of their palaces, as our fourth chapter points out. Throughout our second section generally, the testimony indicates that the essential nature of these fairy-folk is subjective or spiritual. These two facts at the outset are very important and fundamental, because we expect to show even more clearly than we have just done in the case of menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs, and smaller tumuli, that the folk-belief under consideration is at bottom a psychical one, which has grown up out of a folk-memory of the time when, as has just been said, Celtic or pre-Celtic tumuli were used for interments, and probably certain ones among them as places for the celebration of pagan mysteries.

Mr. George Coffey, the eminent archaeologist in charge of the archaeological collections of the Royal Irish Academy, quotes from ancient Irish records in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre and other manuscripts to show that the early traditions refer to the Boyne country as the burial-place of the kings of Tara, and that sometimes they seem to associate Brugh-na-Boyne with the tumuli on the Boyne,[464] but, no exact identification being possible, it cannot be said with certainty whether any one of the three great Boyne tumuli is meant. Even though it could be shown conclusively that some mighty hero or king had actually been entombed in New Grange, as is likely, in the earth behind the chamber, under the chamber’s floor, or even within the chamber, still, as we have already pointed out, most of the great Irish heroes and kings were in popular belief literally gods incarnate, and, therefore (as commonly among all ancient peoples, civilized and non-civilized, who held the same doctrine), the tomb of such a divine personage came to be regarded as the actual dwelling of the once incarnate god, even though his bones were long turned to dust. The Book of Ballymote strengthens this suggestion: in one of its ancient Irish poems, by MacNia, son of Oenna, preceded by this mystical dedication, ‘Ye Poets of Bregia, of truth, not false,’ the wonders of the Palace of the Boyne, the Hall of the great god Daghda, supreme king and oracle of the Tuatha de Danann, are thus celebrated:—

Behold the Sidh before your eyes,
It is manifest to you that it is a king’s mansion,
Which was built by the firm Daghda;
It was a wonder, a court, an admirable hill.[465]

It seems clear enough, from the old Irish manuscripts referred to by Mr. Coffey,[466] that the Boyne country near Tara was the sacred and religious centre of ancient Ireland, and was used by the Irish in very much the same way as Memphis and other places on the sacred Nile were used by the ancient Egyptians, both as a royal cemetery and as a place for the celebration of pagan mysteries. It is known that most of the Mysteries of Antiquity were psychic in their nature, having to do with the neophyte’s entrance into Hades or the invisible world while out of the physical body, or else with direct communication with gods, spirits, and shades of the dead, while in the physical body; and such mysteries were performed in darkened chambers from which all light was excluded. These chambers were often carved out of solid rock, as can be seen in the Rock Temples of India; and when mountain caves or natural caverns were not available, artificial ones were used (see [chapter x]).

The places, like Tara and Memphis, where the great men and kings of the nations of antiquity were entombed, being the most sacred, were very often, on that account, also the places dedicated to the most magnificent temples and to the Mysteries, or among less advanced nations to the worship of the dead. On every side of sacred Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain is dotted with the burial mounds of unknown heroes and chieftains of ancient Britain; while in modern times, even though the Mysteries are long forgotten, Westminster Abbey, at the centre of the planet’s capital, has, in turn, become the hallowed Hall of the Mighty Dead for the vast British Empire. In view of all these facts, after a careful examination of the famous New Grange tumulus itself, and a study of the references to it in old Irish literature, we are firmly of the opinion that one cannot be far wrong in describing it as a spirit-temple in which were celebrated ancient Celtic or pre-Celtic Mysteries at the time when neophytes, including those of royal blood, were initiated; and as such it is directly related to a cult of the Tuatha De Danann or Fairy-Folk, of spirits, and of the dead. Nor are we alone in this opinion. Mr. Coffey himself, we believe, is inclined to favour it; and Mr. W. C. Borlase, author of The Dolmens of Ireland, who is quite committed to it, says that it is not necessary, as some do, to consider New Grange as an ancient abode of mortal men, for ‘the spirits of the dead, the fairies, the Sidhe, might have had their brugh, or palace, as well’.[467] And he points out that in the old Irish manuscripts we have proof that it was supposed to be thus used. This proof is found in the Agallamh na Senórach or ‘Colloquy with the Ancients’ by St. Patrick, from the Book of Lismore, a fifteenth-century manuscript copied from older manuscripts and now translated by Standish H. O’Grady:—The three sons of the King of Ireland, by name Ruidhe, Fiacha, and Eochaid, leaving their nurse’s and guardian’s house, went to fert na ndruadh, i. e. ‘grave of the wizards’, north-west of Tara, to ask of their father a country, a domain; but he refused their request, and then they formed a project to gain lands and riches by fasting on the tuatha dé Danann at the brugh upon the Boyne: ‘“Lands therefore I will not bestow on you, but win lands for yourself.” Thereupon they with the ready rising of one man rose and took their way to the green of the brugh upon the Boyne where, none other being in their company, they sat them down. Ruidhe said: “What is your plan to-night?” His brothers rejoined: “Our project is to fast on the tuatha dé Danann, aiming thus to win from them good fortune in the shape of a country, of a domain, of lands, and to have vast riches.” Nor had they been long there when they marked a cheery-looking young man of a pacific demeanour that came towards them. He salutes the king of Ireland’s sons; they answer him after the same manner. “Young man, whence art thou? whence comest thou?” “Out of yonder brugh chequered with the many lights hard by you here.” “What name wearest thou?” “I am the Daghda’s son Bodhb Derg; and to the tuatha dé Danann it was revealed that ye would come to fast here to-night, for lands and for great fortune.”’ Then with Bodhb Derg, the three sons of Ireland’s king entered into the brugh, and the tuatha dé Danann went into council, and Midhir Yellow-mane son of the Daghda who presided said: ‘Those yonder accommodate now with three wives, since from wives it is that either fortune or misfortune is derived.’ And from their marriages with the three daughters of Midhir they derived all their wishes—territories and wealth in the greatest abundance. ‘For three days with their nights they abode in the sídh.’ ‘Angus told them to carry away out of fidh omna, i. e. “Oakwood,” three apple-trees: one in full bloom, another shedding the blossom, and another covered with ripe fruit. Then they repaired to the dún, where they abode for three times fifty years, and until those kings disappeared; for in virtue of marriage alliance they returned again to the tuatha dé Danann, and from that time forth have remained there.’[468]

Mr. Borlase, commenting on this passage, suggests its importance in proving to us that during the Middle Ages there existed a tradition, thus committed to writing from older manuscripts or from oral sources, regarding ‘the nature of the rites performed in pagan times at those places, which were held sacred to the heathen mysteries’.[469] The passage evidently describes a cult of royal or famous ancestral spirits identified with the god-race of Tuatha De Danann, who, as we know, being reborn as mortals, ruled Ireland. These ancestral spirits were to be approached by a pilgrimage made to their abode, the spirit-haunted tumulus, and a residence in it of three days and three nights during which period there was to be an unbroken fast. Sacrifices were doubtless offered to the gods, or spirit-ancestors; and while they were ‘fasted upon’, they were expected to appear and grant the pilgrim’s prayer and to speak with him. All this indicates that the existence of invisible beings was taken for granted, probably through the knowledge gained by initiation.

The Echtra Nerai or the ‘Adventures of Nera’ (see this study, p. [287]), contains a description like the one above, of how a mortal named Nera went into the Sidhe-palace at Cruachan; and it is said that he went not only into the cave (uamh) but into the síd of the cave. The term uamh or cave, according to Mr. Borlase, indicates the whole of the interior vaulted chamber, while the síd of that vaulted chamber or uamh is intended to refer to ‘the sanctum sanctorum, or penetralia of the spirit-temple, upon entering into which the mortal came face to face with the royal occupants, and there doubtless he lay fasting, or offering his sacrifices, at the periods prescribed’.[470] The word brugh refers simply to the appearance of a tumulus, or souterrain beneath a fort or rath, and means, therefore, mansion or dwelling-place.[471] And Mr. Borlase adds:—‘I feel but little doubt that in the inner chamber at New Grange, with its three recesses and its basin, we have this síd of the cave, and the place where the pilgrims fasted—a situation and a practice precisely similar to those which, under Christian auspices, were continued at such places as the Leaba Mologa in Cork, the original Patrick’s Purgatory in Lough Derg, and elsewhere. The practice of lying in stone troughs was a feature of the Christian pilgrimages in Ireland. Sometimes such troughs had served the previous purpose of stone coffins. It is just possible that the shallow basins in the cells at Lough Crew, New Grange, and Dowth may, like the stone beds or troughs of the saints,[472] have been occupied by the pilgrims engaged in their devotions. If so, however, they must have sat in them in Eastern fashion.’[471]

Again, in the popular tale called The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainnè,[473] Aengus, the son of the Dagda, one of the Tuatha De Danann, is called Aengus-an-Bhrogha, and connected with the Brugh-na-Boinne. In the tale Finn says, ‘Let us leave this tulach, for fear that Aengus-an-Bhrogha and the Tuatha-De-Danann might catch us; and though we have no part in the slaying of Diarmuid, he would none the more readily believe us.’ Aengus is evidently an invisible being with great power over mortals. This is clear in what follows: he transports Diarmuid’s body to the Brugh-na-Boinne, saying, ‘Since I cannot restore him to life, I will send a soul into him, so that he may talk to me each day.’ Thus, as the presiding deity of the brugh, Aengus the Tuatha De Danann could reanimate dead bodies ‘and cause them to speak to devotees, we may suppose oracularly.’[474] In the Bruighion Chaorthainn or ‘Fort of the Rowan Tree’, a Fenian tale, a poet put Finn under taboo to understand these verses:—