Conclusion
The fact of ancient Celtic cults of stones, waters, trees, and fairies still existing under cover of Christianity directly sustains the Psychological Theory; and the persistence of the ancient Celtic cult of the dead, as illustrated in the survival of Samain in its modern forms, and perhaps best seen now among the Bretons, goes far to sustain the opinion of Ernest Renan, who declared in his admirable Essais that of all peoples the Celts, as the Romans also recorded, have most precise ideas about death. Thus it is that the Celts at this moment are the most spiritually conscious of western nations. To think of them as materialists is impossible. Since the time of Patrick and Columba the Gaels have been the missionaries of Europe; and, as Caesar asserts, the Druids were the ancient teachers of the Gauls, no less than of all Britain. And the mysteries of life and death are the key-note of all things really Celtic, even of the great literature of Arthur, Cuchulainn, and Finn, now stirring the intellectual world.
SECTION III
THE CULT OF GODS, SPIRITS, FAIRIES, AND THE DEAD
CHAPTER X
THE TESTIMONY OF CHRISTIANITY
‘The Purgatory of St. Patrick became the framework of another series of tales, embodying the Celtic ideas concerning the other life and its different states. Perhaps the profoundest instinct of the Celtic peoples is their desire to penetrate the unknown. With the sea before them, they wish to know what is to be found beyond it; they dream of the Promised Land. In the face of the unknown that lies beyond the tomb, they dream of that great journey which the pen of Dante has celebrated.’—Ernest Renan.
Lough Derg a sacred lake originally—Purgatorial rites as christianized survivals of ancient Celtic rites—Purgatory as Fairyland—Purgatorial rites parallel to pagan initiation ceremonies—The Death and Resurrection Rite—Breton Pardons compared—Relation to Aengus Cult and Celtic cave-temples—Origin of Purgatorial doctrine pre-Christian—Celtic and Roman feasts of dead shaped Christian ones—Fundamental unity of Mythologies, Religions, and the Fairy-Faith.