[254] Sometimes, as in Da Choca’s Hostel (Rev. Celt., xxi. 157, 315), the Badb appears as a weird woman uttering prophecies. In this case the Badb watches over Cormac as his doom comes. She is described as standing on one foot, and with one eye closed (apparently in a bird’s posture), as she chanted to Cormac this prophecy:—‘I wash the harness of a king who will perish.’
[255] Synonymous names are Badb-catha, Fea, Ana. Cf. Rev. Celt., i. 35-7.
[256] Cf. Hennessy, Ancient Irish Goddess of War, in Rev. Celt., i. 32-55.
[257] Stokes, Second Battle of Moytura, in Rev. Celt., xii. 109-11.
[258] Luzel, Contes populaires de Basse Bretagne, iii. 296-311.
[259] The Celtic examples recall non-Celtic ones: the raven was sacred among the ancient Scandinavians and Germans, being looked upon as the emblem of Odin; in ancient Egypt and Rome commonly, and to a less extent in ancient Greece, gods often declared their will through birds or even took the form of birds; in Christian scriptures the Spirit of God or the Holy Ghost descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the semblance of a dove; and it is almost a world-wide custom to symbolize the human soul under the form of a bird or butterfly. Possibly such beliefs as these are relics of a totemistic creed which in times long previous to history was as definitely held by the ancestors of the nations of antiquity, including the ancient Celts, as any totemistic creed to be found now among native Australians or North American Red Men. At all events, in the story of a bird ancestry of Conaire we seem to have a perfectly clear example of a Celtic totemistic survival—even though Dr. Frazer may not admit it as such (cf. Rev. Celt., xxii. 20, 24; xii. 242-3).
[260] Hennessy, The Ancient Irish Goddess of War, in Rev. Celt., i. 32-57.
[261] Aoibheall, who came to tell Brian Borumha of his death at Clontarf, was the family banshee of the royal house of Munster. Cf. J. H. Todd, War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill (London, 1867), p. 201.
[262] Hyde, Literary History of Ireland, p. 440.
[263] Cf. Hennessy, in Rev. Celt., i. 39-40. In place of badb, Dr. Hyde (Lit. Hist. Irl., p. 440) uses the word vulture.