A BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS

NOTES TO SECTION 8

[1] [Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, bk. 6, chs. 17 and 18. 'They worship as their divinity, Mercury in particular, and have many images of him, and regard him as the inventor of all arts, they consider him the guide of their journeys and marches, and believe him to have great influence over the acquisition of gain and mercantile transactions. Next to him they worship Apollo, and Mars, and Jupiter, and Minerva; respecting these deities they have for the most part the same belief as other nations: that Apollo averts diseases, that Minerva imparts the invention of manufactures, that Jupiter possesses the sovereignty of the heavenly powers; that Mars presides over wars. To him, when they have determined to engage in battle, they commonly vow those things which they shall take in war. When they have conquered, they sacrifice whatever captured animals may have survived the conflict, and collect the other things into one place. In many states you may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots; nor does it often happen that any one, disregarding the sanctity of the case, dares either to secrete in his house things captured, or take away those deposited; and the most severe punishment, with torture, has been established for such a deed.
    All the Gauls assert that they are descended from the god Dis, and say that this tradition has been handed down by the Druids. For that reason they compute the divisions of every season, not by the number of days, but of nights; they keep birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such an order that the day follows the night. Among the other usages of their life, they differ in this from almost all other nations, that they do not permit their children to approach them openly until they are grown up so as to be able to bear the service of war; and they regard it as indecorous for a son of boyish age to stand in public in the presence of his father.']

[2] [Chips From A German Workshop, vol. 3, p. 241. 'For even the tale that is told in "Little Arthur's History of England" about the ancient Britons and the Druids is extremely doubtful. Druids are never mentioned before Cæsar. Few writers, if any, before him were able to distinguish between Celts and Germans, but spoke of the barbarians of Gaul and Germany as the Greeks spoke of Scythians, or as we ourselves speak of the negroes of Africa, without distinguishing between races so different from each other as Hottentots and Kaffirs. Cæsar was one of the first writers who knew of an ethnological distinction between Celtic and Teutonic barbarians, and we may therefore trust him when he says that the Celts had Druids, and the Germans had none. But his further statements about these Celtic priests and sages are hardly more trustworthy than the account which an ordinary Indian officer at the present day might give us of the Buddhist priests and the Buddhist religion of Ceylon. Cæsar's statement that the Druids worshipped Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, is of the same base metal as the statements of more modern writers that the Buddhists worship the Trinity, and that they take Buddha for the Son of God. Cæsar most likely never conversed with a Druid, nor was he able to control, if he was able to understand, the statements made to him about the ancient priesthood, the religion and literature of Gaul. Besides, Cæsar himself tells us very little about the priests of Gaul and Britain; and the thrilling accounts of the white robes and the golden sickles belong to Pliny's "Natural History," by no means a safe authority in such matters.']

[3] [The Ancient State of Britain, bk. 1, ch. 4. 4. 'Among their gods, the principal object of their worship was Mercury. Next to him they adored Justice (under the name of Astarte), then Apollo, and Mars (who was called Vitucadrus) Jupiter, Minerva, Hercules, Victory (called Andate), Diana, Cybele, and Pluto. Of these deities they held the same opinions as other nations.' Bertram's tr., p. 19, 1809 ed.]

[4] [Dionysii Orbis Descriptio.]

[5] [History of the Kings of Great Britain. 'Now, whilst I was thus thinking upon such matters, Walter Archdeacon of Oxford, a man learned not only in the art of eloquence, but in the histories of foreign lands, offered me a certain most ancient book in the British language that did set forth the doings of them all in due succession and order from Brute, the first King of the Britons, onward to Cadwallader, the son of Cadwallo, all told in stories of exceeding beauty.' Tr., S. Evans, p. 4, 1904 ed.]

[6] [Source.]

[7] [Brut, MS. Cott. Calig. A. 9, lines 4829-35, Madden's ed. 'Heo lið hut of Toteneis. a þet cume to Catenes;
    Toteneis is in Cornwale. Cateneis in Scot-dale;
    An-oðer stret. he makede swiðe hendi; from Suð-hamtone to Seint Deuwi.']

[8] [Ibid., lines 6050-60. 'He came to a spot, in a fair field, he had obtained a hide to his need, of a wild bull that was wondrously strong. He had a wise man, who well knew of craft, who took this hide, and laid it on a board, and whet his shears, as if he would shear. Of the hide he carved a thong, very small and very long, the thong was not very broad, but as it were a thread of twine; when the thong was all slit, it was wondrously long, about therewith he encompassed a great deal of land. He began to dig a ditch very mickle, there upon a stone wall, that was strong over all, a burgh he areared, mickle and lofty. When the burgh was all ready, then shaped he to it a name, he named it full truly Kaer-Carrai in British, and English knights they called it Thongchester.' There is no ref. to a Billingsgate nor a tower. But as Massey has given this as a ref. this is the exact lines he mentions.]

[9] [Hanes Taliesin. Unable to trace.]

[10] [Brut, lines 6060-4. 'Now and evermore the name standeth there, and for no other adventure had the burgh the name, until that Danish men came, and drove out the Britons.']

[11] [Geoffrey, History of the Kings of Great Britain. 'Nor were the wizards out in their forecast, for when the day came that she should be delivered of a child, the mother bare a son, but herself died in his birth. Howbeit, the child was given in charge unto a nurse, and was named Brute. At last, after thrice five years had gone by, the lad, bearing his father company out a-hunting, slew him by striking him unwittingly with an arrow. For when the verderers drave the deer in front of them, Brute, thinking to take aim at them, smote his own father under the breast. Upon the death of his father he was driven out of Italy, his kinsfolk being wroth with him for having wrought a deed so dreadful. He went therefore as an exile into Greece, and there fell in with the descendants of Helenus, the son of Priam, who at that time were held in bondage under the power of Pandrasus, King of the Greeks. For Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, after the overthrow of Troy, had led away with him in fetters the foresaid Helenas and a great number of others besides, whom he commanded to be held in bondage by way of revenging upon them his fathers death. And when Brute understood that they were of the lineage of his former fellow-citizens, he sojourned amongst them. Howbeit, in such wise did he achieve renown for his knighthood and prowess, that he was beloved by kings and dukes above all the other youths of the country. For among the wise he was as wise as he was valiant among warriors, and whatsoever gold or silver or ornaments he won, he gave it all in largess to his comrades in battle. His fame was thus spread abroad among all nations, and the Trojans flocked unto him from all parts, beseeching him that he should be their King and deliver them from the slavery of the Greeks; the which they declared might easily be done, seeing that they had now so multiplied in the land as that without making count of little ones and women they were already reckoned to be seven thousand.' Tr., S. Evans, p. 5, 1904 ed.]

[12] [Geoffrey, ibid., 10.3: 'Natheless, he bade that they who came to look upon it should keep their tongues quiet, inasmuch as never had he forgathered with none other of so puissant hardihood since he slew the giant Ritho upon Mount Eryri, that had challenged him to fight with him. For this Ritho had fashioned him a furred cloak of the beards of the kings he had slain, and he had bidden Arthur heedfully to flay off his beard and send it unto him with the skin, in which case, seeing that Arthur did excel other kings, he would sew it in his honour above the other beards on his cloak.' Tr., S. Evans, p. 264, 1904 ed.]

[13] ['Colonel Vallancey, in the 13th number of his Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, p. 97, speaking of the wren, the augur's favourite bird, says that "the Druids represented this as the king of all birds. The superstitious respect shown to this little bird gave offence to our first Christian missionaries, and, by their commands, he is still hunted and killed by the peasants on Christmas Day, and on the following (St. Stephen's Day) he is carried about hung by the leg in the centre of two hoops crossing each other at right angles, and a procession made in every village, of men, women, and children, singing an Irish catch, importing him to be the king of all birds. Hence the name of this bird in all the European languages Greek, Trochilus, Basileus; Rex Avium; Senator; Latin, Regulus; French, Roytelet, Berichot, but why this nation call him Bosuf-de-Dieu I cannot conjecture; Welsh, Bren, King; Teutonic, Koning Vogel, King Bird; Dutch, Koriije, little King."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 3, p. 195.]

[14] [Taliesin, Poem in Praise of Lludd the Great, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids. p. 563.]

[15] [Gen. 10:5. 'By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.']

[16] [Cynddelw, In Praise of Owen Gwynwedd. In Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 165.]

[17] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 567.]

[18] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 188.]

[19] [Hanes Taliesin, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 187.]

[20] [Englynion y Gorugiau (Iolo MSS, 263), in Rhys, Lectures on Welsh Philology, p. 325. '''Goruc Arthen ap Arth Hen
    Rhag ffwyr esgar ac aagen,
    Llafn yngbad ynghadr aerfen;"
i.e., Arthur ap Arth Hen against foeman's attack and injury made the blade (for use) in battle, in stout war.']

[21] [ARC, 43, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 409.]

[22] [Gwawd Lludd y Mawr, ARC, 74, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 122.]

[23] [ARC, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 8.]

[24] [Camden, Britannia, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 609.]

[25] [Ibid., p. 609.]

[26] [Ibid., p. 609.]

[27] [Ibid., p. 620.]

[28] [Camden, Britannia, tables,  no. 13, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 607.]

[29] [The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, plate.]

[30] [The History of Manchester, vol. 1, p. 342. From Davies, ibid., plate.]

[31] [Coin 6, Camden, Britannia, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 599.]

[32] ['The Wife of Bath, Prologue,' in Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, (1822 ed), vol. 2, p. 126, lines 6185-6. 'Gat-tothed I was, and that became me wele,
    I had the print of Seinte Venus sele.'
Tyrwhitt's ed. The Wife was a lecherous woman, signified by her gapped teeth, a supposed sign of lechery. She, still in her prime, had already worn out four husbands, and  was now on her fifth!]

[33] ['The following curious love divinations are extracted from the old chap-book, entitled Mother Bunch's Closet Newly Broke Open: "First, if any one here desires to know the name of the man whom she shall marry, let her who desires this seek a green peascod, in which there are full nine peas; which done, either write or cause to be written, on a small slip of paper, these words 'Come in, my dear, and do not fear;' which writing you must inclose within the aforesaid peascod, and lay it under the door, then mind the next person who comes in, for you'll certainly marry one of the same name. Secondly, she who desires to be satisfied whether she shall enjoy the man desired or no, let her take two lemon-peels, in the morning, and wear them all day under her arm-pits; then at night let her rub the four posts of the bed with them; which done, in your sleep he will seem to come and present you with a couple of lemons, but if not, there is no hope.' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 386.]

[34] [Dyer, British Popular Customs, p. 429. 'The Chapter of Worcester have a practice of preparing a rich bowl of wine and spices, called the "Cathern bowl," for the inhabitants of the college upon this day. Halliwell's Popular Rhymes, (1849 ed.), p. 238; see N. & Q. 2nd S. vol. iv. pp. 495, 496.']

[35] [Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, (1822 ed.?), vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 507. Unable to trace.]

[36] [ARC, 66, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 266.]

[37] [Dyer, British Popular Customs, p. 426. 'On Cattern Day the lace makers hold merry-makings, and eat a sort of cakes called "wigs"* and drink ale. Tradition says it is in remembrance of Queen Catherine, who, when the trade was dull, burnt all her lace, and ordered new to be made. The ladies of the court could not but follow her example, and the consequence was a great briskness in the manufacture. N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. i. p. 387.
    * Cakes called "wigs" were very commonly sold in the Midland counties some years ago, and they are even mentioned as allowable at the collation in Lent by a Catholic writer nearly two centuries ago. They were light and spongy, and something like very light ginger-bread. As to the derivation of the name "wig" as applied to them, a correspondent of Notes and Queries says he never dreamed of seeing it any where but in the shape of these cakes, which greatly resembled a wig; being round, and having a thick rim round them, which turned up like the curls of a wig of the olden times. See N. & Q. 3rd. S. vol. i. p. 436.']

[38] [Jewitt, 'On Ancient Customs and Sports in the County of Derby,' JBAA, 7 (1852): 208. See the whole article here.]

[39] [Rev. 17:9. 'And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.']

[40] [Oliver, The Monumental Antiquities of Great Grimsby, p. 39.]

[41] [Gibson, Camden's Britannia, cols. 772-3, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 397.]

[42] [Hanes Taliesin, ch. 3, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 397.]

[43] [Goodwin, 'Story of Saneha,' RP, 6, 131. See p. 138.]

[44] [Rit. ch. 125. 'Come, come in peace, say those who see them, because the Osiris has heard the great words said by the Ass and the Cat in the house of Pet, whose mouth is twisted when he looks, because his face is behind him.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[45] [Rit. ch. 17. 'I am the Great Cat which is in the Pool of Persea, which is at Annu [Heliopolis], the night of the battle made to bind the wicked, the day of strangling the enemies of the Universal Lord there.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[46] [De L'Ancre, Tableau de l'inconstance des mauvais anges et demons, pp. 67-72.
See also Knight, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, pp. 176-7. 'In the course of the eleventh century the sestarians appeared in Italy under the name of Patarini, Paterini, or Patrini, which is said to have been taken from an old quarter of the city of Milan named Pataria, in which they first held their assemblies. A contemporary Englishman, Walter Mapes, gives us a singular account of the Paterini and their secret rites. Some apostates from this heresy, he tells us, had related that, at the first watch of night, they met in their synagogues, closed carefully the doors and windows, and waited in silence, until a black cat of extraordinary bigness descended among them by a rope, and that, as soon as they saw this strange animal, they put out the lights, and muttering through their teeth instead of singing their hymns, felt their way to this object of their worship, and kissed it, according to their feelings of humility or pride, some on the feet, some under the tail, and others on the genitals, after which each seized upon the nearest person of a different sex, and had carnal intercourse as long as he was able. Their leaders taught them that the most perfect degree of charity was "to do or suffer in this manner whatever a brother or sister might desire and ask," and hence, says Mapes, they were called Paterini, a-patiendo.']

[47] [Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, 21, 89. 'It has been already remarked that people soon seized upon accusations of this kind as excuses for persecution, religious and political, and we meet with a curious example in the earlier half of the thirteenth century. The district of Steding, in the north of Germany, now known as Oldenburg, was at the beginning of the thirteenth century inhabited by a people who lived in sturdy independence, but the archbishops of Bremen seem to have claimed some sort of feudal superiority over them, which they resisted by force. The archbishop, in revenge, declared them heretics, and proclaimed a crusade against them. Crusades against heretics were then in fashion, for it was just at the time of the great war against the Albigeois. The Stedingers maintained their independence successfully for some years. In 1232 and 1233, the pope issued two bulls against the offending Stedingers, in both of which he charges them with various heathen and magical practices, but in the second he enters more fully into details. These Stedingers, the pope (Gregory IX.) tells us, performed the following ceremonies at the initiation of a new convert into their fed. When the novice was introduced, a toad presented itself, which all who were present kissed, some on the posteriors, and others on the mouth, when they drew its tongue and spittle into their own mouths. Sometimes this toad appeared of only the natural size, but sometimes it was as big as a goose or duck, and often its size was that of an oven. As the novice proceeded, he encountered a man who was extraordinarily pale, with large black eyes, and whose body was so wafted that his flesh seemed to be all gone, leaving nothing but the skin hanging on his bones. The novice kissed this personage, and found him as cold as ice; and after this kiss all traces of the Catholic faith vanished from his heart. Then they all fat down to a banquet; and when this was over, there stepped out of a statue, which stood in their place of meeting, a black cat, as large as a moderate sized dog, which advanced backwards to them, with its tail turned up. The novice first, then the master, and then all the others in their turns, kissed the cat under the tail, and then returned to their places, where they remained in silence, with their heads inclined towards the cat. Then the master suddenly pronounced the words "Spare us!" which he addressed to the next in order; and the third answered, "We know it, lord;" and a fourth added, "We ought to obey." At the close of this ceremony the lights were extinguished, and each man took the first woman who came to hand, and had carnal intercourse with her. When this was over, the candles were again lighted, and the performers resumed their places. Then out of a dark corner of the room came a man, the upper part of whom, above the loins, was bright and radiant as the fun, and illuminated the whole room, while his lower parts were rough and hairy like a cat. The master then tore off a bit of the garment of the novice, and said to the shining personage, "Master, this is given to me, and I give it again to thee." The master replied, "Thou haft served me well, and thou wilt serve me more and better; what thou haft given me I give unto thy keeping." When he had said this, the shining man vanished, and the meeting broke up. Such were the secret ceremonies of the Stedingers, according to the deliberate statement of pope Gregory IX, who also charges them with offering direct worship to Lucifer.' From Knight, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, pp. 184-5.]

[48] [Rit. ch. 17. See note 45 above.]

[49] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 438.]

[50] [Natural History, bk. 22.2.]

[51] [Ibid.]

[52] [Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, 5.14. 'The most civilized of all these nations are they who inhabit Kent, which is entirely a maritime district, nor do they differ much from the Gallic customs. Most of the inland inhabitants do not sow corn, but live on milk and flesh, and are clad with skins. All the Britains, indeed, dye themselves with woad, which occasions a bluish colour, and thereby have a more terrible appearance in fight. They wear their hair long, and have every part of their body shaved except their head and upper lip. Ten and even twelve have wives common to them, and particularly brothers among brothers, and parents among their children; but if there be any issue by these wives, they are reputed to be the children of those by whom respectively each was first espoused when a virgin.'
Anton, the translator, notes, 'Se vitro inficiunt. "Stain themselves with woad," i.e., of a blue colour. The Greek name for this plant is isatis; its other appellation in Latin, besides vitrum, is glastum. This last is supposed to be derived from the old British word glas, which means not only "green," but also "blue." The Romans, it is thought, confounded the glas of the Britons with the old German word glas, applied first to "amber," and afterward to "glass," and hence gave the name of vitrum to the plant in question.' P. 351 of the 1856 ed.]

[53] ['Ex Jornandes Historia de Getarum sive Gothorum Origine,'—in Bouquet?]

[54] [Unable to trace.]

[55] [Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought, frontis.]

[56] [Rit. ch. 23. 'I am Pahst and Uat, seated in the Great Quarter, the greatest of the heaven.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[57] [Birch makes no mention of the Northern quarter.]

[58] [Rit. ch. 110. 'Oh, great Land, I have come from thee. I have prepared, I have irrigated, I have ... the meadows. I am the Bull painted [drawn] blue, the Lord of the Fields; the Bull called [by] Sothis at her time. Oh Ukbauaha [Meadow], I have come from thee eating, strengthened by the thighs of bulls, and by birds, I serve the Earth [Type]. Oh Utet [Green], I have come putting on my clothes! I have put on me the woof of the Sun when within the Heaven. I serve the Gods, I follow the Sun in Heaven. Oh Usert [Sustenance], at the head of the place where Hu has been born! Oh divine Land of Corn and Barley, I have come from thee! I have stopped my arm from working at my service in thee, who art called Ruler of Purity—Pure Mistress. I have passed and anchored from thy upper waters. I have given adoration from the cabin. They salute the Osiris.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[59] [Ap Hywell Dda, Laws of Wales, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 286.]

[60] [Polyolbion, in Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 130, song 5. 'No fish in this wide waste but with exceeding cost
    Was there in antique work most curiously imbost.
    She, in a watchet weed, with many a curious wave,
    Which as a princely gift great Amphitrite gave;
    Whose skirts were to the knee, with coral fring'd below
    To grace her goodly steps. And where she meant to go.']

[61] [Natural History, bk. 4.30.]

[62] [Oliver, The History of Initiation in Twelve Lectures, (new ed., 1855), p. 156, n. 24. 'In war, the British armies were attended by a magical banner, which had been ritually consecrated by the Druids, and emblazoned with a symbolical device. In the centre was a serpent, surmounted by the meridian sun, and supported by the great father and mother of the human species, personified in Hu and Ceridwen.']

[63] [Stock, Clavis linguæ sanctæ veteris Testamenti?
Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, bk. 1:27. 'To denote speech they depict a TONGUE, and a BLOODSHOT EYE; because they allot the principal parts of speech to the tongue, but the secondary parts thereof to the eyes. For these kinds of discourses are strictly those of the soul varying in conformity with its emotions; more especially as they are denominated by the Egyptians as different languages. And to symbolize speech differently, they depict a TONGUE and a HAND BENEATH; allotting the principal parts of speech to the tongue to perform, and the secondary parts to the hand as effecting the wishes of the tongue.' See also BB 2:638, NG 1:284]

[64] [Gibson, Camden's Britannia, tab. 1. fig. 3, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 604.]

[65] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 107.]

[66] [Iolo Goch. Iolo MSS. Rhys?]

[67] [Rit. ch. 17. 'Those Gods who are made attached to the generation of the Sun are Hu [taste], Ka [touch]: they are followers of their father Tum daily.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[68] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 121.]

[69] [Rit. ch. 17. See note 67 above.]

[70] [Ancient Welsh Poem by Gwarchan Maelderw—see BB 1:342. Davies, ibid., p. 576. See also p. 172.]

[71] [Natural History, bk. 29.12.]

[72] [Maspero, 'Stele of the Excommunication,' RP, 4, 93. See p. 95.]

[73] [Rit. ch. 15. See Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[74] [Birch, 'Inscription of Darius at El-Khargeh,' TSBA, 5, 301. 'Thou hast rested in the cow, thou seizest the horns, thou hast been immersed in the cow Mehur. No germ grows, rising from its entirety to earth from the ether, sound in the roots.'
Birch, 'Inscription of Darius at El-Khargeh,' RP, 8, 135. See p. 140.]

[75] [Rit. ch. 17. 'The Osiris has seen the Sun who is born in the star [morn] at the thigh of the Great Water [Cow].' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[76] [Rit. ch. 17. 'Nefer-Tum son of Bast.' This is the only ref. I can find in Birch. Cf. Renouf.]

[77] [Fosbroke, Companion to the Wye Tour. Ariconensia; or Archælogical Sketches of Ross, and Archenfield, p. 58. Not in 1821 ed.]

[78] [Basse and Philips. 'In Sphinx and Œdipus, or a Helpe to Discourse, 8vo. Lond. 1632, p. 271, we read, that "the devil never appears in the shape of a dove, or a lamb, but in those of goats, dogs, and cats, or such like; and that to the witch of Edmunton he appeared in the shape of a dog, and called his name Dora."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 517.]

[79] [Knight, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, p. 151. 'So profound is the belief of its efficacy in Italy, that it is commonly believed and reported there that, at the battle of Solferino, the king of Italy held his hand in his pocket with this arrangement of the fingers as a protection against the shots of the enemy. There were personages connected with the worship of Priapus who appear to have been common to the Romans under and before the empire, and to the foreign races who fettled upon its ruins.']

[80] [Topographic Poems?]

[81] [Lefebure, 'The Book of Hades,' RP, 10, 79. See p. 88, 1st div. pls.]

[82] [Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 400. 'In depicting this constellation, Teoyaotlatohua Huitzilopochtli was represented with only half his body, as it were, seated on a bench, and with his mouth open as if speaking. His head was decorated after a peculiar fashion with feathers, his arms were made like trunks of trees with branches, while from his girdle there issued certain herbs that fell downwards over the bench.']

[83] [Rit. ch. 79. 'The Gods live, they see it. I prevail as ye do with that God taller than his box [place]. He has come; the Gods rejoice; the Goddess-wives rejoice at him [when] they see him, I have come to ye.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[84] [Rit. ch. 125. 'Oh, Taller than his box, [?] Lord of the crown Atef, to whom has been given the name of Lord of the Winds!' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[85] [Lefebure, 'The Book of Hades,' RP, 10, 79. See p. 109.]

[86] [Naville, 'The Litany of Ra,' RP, 8, 103. See p. 116.]

[87] [Source.]

[88] [Every Day Book, vol. 1, p. 562. 'About a fortnight previous to the day, the interesting question among the lads and lasses is, "Who will turn out to dance in the summer this year?" From that time the names of the gay performers are buzzed in the village, and rumour "with her hundred tongues" proclaims them throughout the surrounding neighbourhood. Nor is it asked with less interest, "Who will carry the garland?" and "Who will be the Cadi?" Of the peculiar offices of these two distinguished person ages you shall hear presently.
    About nine days or a week previous to the festival, a collection is made of the gayest ribbons that can be procured. Each lad resorts to his favoured lass, who gives him the best she possesses, and uses her utmost interest with her friends or her mistress to obtain a loan of whatever may be requisite to supply the deficiency. Her next care is to decorate a new white shirt of fine linen. This is a principal part of her lover's dress. The bows and puffs of ribbon are disposed according to the peculiar taste of each fair girl who is rendered happy by the pleasing task; and thus the shirts of the dancers, from the various fancies of the adorners, form a diversified and lively appearance.']

[89] [NQ, 2nd ser., (1856) 2, 229. 'Coventry God-cakes. Can any of your readers give me information respecting the ancient custom in the city of Coventry of sending God-cakes on the first day of the year. They are used by all classes, and vary in price from a half-penny to one pound. They are invariably made in a triangular shape, an inch thick, and filled with a kind of mince-meat. I believe the custom is peculiar to that city, and should be glad to know more about its origin. So general is the use of them on January 1, that the cheaper sorts are hawked about the streets, as hot-cross-buns are on Good Friday in London. J. W. S.']

[90] ['"To dance Curcuddie or Curcuddoch," says Dr. Jamieson, in his Etymological Dictionary, "is a phrase used (in Scotland) to denote a play among children, in which they sit on their houghs, and hop round in a circular form. Many of these old terms, which now are almost entirely confined to the mouths of children, may be overlooked as nonsensical or merely arbitrary. But the most of them, we are persuaded, are as regularly formed as any other in the language. The first syllable of this word is undoubtedly the verb curr, to sit on the houghs or hams. The second may be from Teut. kudde, a flock; kudd-en, coire, convenire, congregari, aggregari; kudde wijs, gregatim, catervatim, q. 'to curr together.' The same game is called Harry Hurcheon in the north of Scotland, either from the resemblance of one in this position to a hurcheon, or hedge-hog, squatting under a bush; or from the Belg. hurk-en, to squat, to hurkle."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 415.]

[91] [Dawkins, Early Man in Britain and his Place in the Tertiary Period, p. 378.]

[92] [Birch, Gallery of Antiquities, p. 18. 'Among the Egyptians the cat was an animal sacred to the Sun and Bubastis; and in the Ritual the cat of the sun lays hold of the reptile or apoph, while certain inscriptions mention "the cat devouring the abominable rat" apparently alluding to the antagonist principles of the sun and night—of good and evil.']

[93] [Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 340. 'These revels began at midnight and ceased at dawn. Then indeed did the priests array themselves in all their glory: underneath was a jacket, over that a thin transparent mantle called aiauhquemitl, decorated with parrot-feathers set crosswise. Between the shoulders they fastened a great round paper flower, like a shield. To the nape of the neck they attached other flowers of crumpled paper of a semi-circular shape; these hung down on both sides of the head like ears. The forehead was painted blue, and over the paint was dusted powder of inarcasite. In the right hand was carried a bag made of tiger-skin, and embroidered with little white shells which clattered as one walked. The bag seems to have been three-cornered; from one angle hung down the tiger's tail, from another his two fore feet, from another his two hind feet. It contained incense made from a certain herb called yiauhtli. There went one priest bearing a hollow board filled with wooden rattles, as before described. In advance of this person age there marched a number of others, carrying in their arms images of the gods made of that gum that is black and leaps, called ulli (India-rubber); these images were called ulteteu, that is to say, gods of ulli. Other ministers there were carrying in their arms lumps of copal, shaped like sugar loaves; each pyramid having a rich feather, called quetzal, stuck in the peak of it like a plume. In this manner went the procession with the usual horns and shells, and the purpose of it was to lead to punishment those that had transgressed in any of the points we have already discussed.']

[94] [Rit. ch. 15. 'Thou hast traversed the heaven, thou hast perambulated the earth, thou hast followed above in yellow, thou hast lodged dancing.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[95] [Rit. ch. 15. 'The great light shining in the heaven, supporting its adorers by thy stream, making festive all countries, cities, gates, and houses daily supported by thy goodness, preparing food, things, supplies, giving victory, prevailer of prevailers [first of the first], obliterating every place for faults, the great king crowned in the cabin, the great one capped in the Ark.' Birch's tr. Note: Massey has 'crossed in the cabin,' whereas Birch has 'crowned.' Cf. Renouf.]

[96] [Rit. ch. 15. 'I saw the Sun in the midst of his box when I hailed the disk daily.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[97] [Kadair Teyrn On, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 120.]

[98] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 528.]

[99] [Rit. ch. 72. 'My father Tum did it for me, he placed my house above the earth; there are corn and barley in it, unknown is their quantity. I made in it the Festival of passing the Soul to my body. I made in it the Festival of Tum for [is said by] my Soul, for [to] my body.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[100] [Rit. ch. 78. Not in Birch.'s tr, nor Renouf's.]

[101] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 531.]

[102] [See NG 2:11.]

[103] [Wilkinson, Materia Hieroglyphica, pl. 65.]

[104] [The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, pp. 527-32.]

[105] [Source.]

[106] ['The facetious author of Hudibras (in ii. 303) gives us the following chief reasons why the Puritans wished it to be set aside:
    "Others were for abolishing
    That tool of matrimony, a ring,
    With which th' unsanctify'd bridegroom
    Is marry'd only to a thumb
    (As wise as ringing of a pig
    That us'd to break up ground and dig);
    The bride to nothing but her will,
    That nulls the after-marriage still."'
Butler, in Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 102.]

[107] ['In the Hereford, York, and Salisbury Missals the ring is directed to be put first upon the thumb, afterwards upon the second, then on the third, and lastly, on the fourth finger, where it is to remain, "quia in illo digito est queedam vena procedens usque ad cor." It is very observable that none of the above Missals mention the hand, whether right or left, upon which the ring is to be put.' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 103.]

[108] ['"At Kidlington, in Oxfordshire, the custom is, that on Monday after Whitsun week there is a fat live lamb provided; and the maids of the town, having their thumbs tied behind them, run after it, and she that with her mouth takes and holds the lamb, is declared Lady of the Lamb, which being dressed, with the skin hanging on, is carried on a long pole before the lady and her companions to the Green, attended with music, and a Morisco dance of men, and another of women, where the rest of the day is spent in dancing, mirth, and merry glee. The next day the lamb is part baked, boiled, and roast, for the Lady's Feast, where she sits majestically at the upper end of the table, and her companions with her, with music and other attendants, which ends the solemnity." (Beckwith's edition of Blount's Jocular Tenures, p. 281.)' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 283.]

[109] [Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. 1, p. 166. 'The little finger, although the smallest, is the most privileged of the five. It is the one that knows everything; and in Piedmont, when the mothers wish to make their children believe that they are in communication with a mysterious spy, who sees everything that they do, they are accustomed to awe them by the words, "My little finger tells me everything."']

[110] [Num. 15:32. 'And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.']

[111] [Wright, Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, vol. 2, p. 711. 'ONION-PENNIES. The name given at Silchester to Roman coins found there, and derived, according to the legend, from a giant named Onion.']

[112] ['Martin, p. 262, speaking of Jona, says: "There is a stone erected here, concerning which the credulous natives say, that whoever reaches out his arm along the stone three times, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, shall never err in steering the helm of a vessel." Ibid. p. 59, speaking of the island Borera, he says: "There is a stone in the form of a cross, in the row opposite to St. Mary's church, about five foot high: the natives call it the Water-cross, for the ancient inhabitants had a custom of erecting this sort of cross to procure rain, and when they had got enough they laid it flat on the ground; but this custom is now disused."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 3, p. 319.]

[113] [Anglosaxisk Grammatika?]

[114] [Source.]

[115] [Observations Relatives à La Physique du Globe?]

[116] [Satires, (1813 ed.), vol. 2, p. 198, 15.9. 'There sea-fish, here a fish of the river; there
    Whole towns worship a dog, nobody Diana.
    It is a sin to violate a leek or onion, or to break them with a bite.
    O holy nations, for whom are born in gardens.'
"Perhaps our poet here goes a little beyond the strict truth, to heighten the ridicule, though there might be possibly some foundation for such an opinion, from the scrupulous abstinence of some of that nation from particular vegetables, as lentils, beans and onions, the latter of which the priests abominated, as some pretend, because Dictys, who had been brought up by Isis, was drowned in seeking after them; or rather, because onions alone, of all plants, thrive when the moon is in the wane." See ANT. Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 484. For the religion of Ægypt, see also ib. p. 467, et seq.; and Abr. of Hutchinson, p. 122.' Madan's tr.]

[117] ['BURTON, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. 1660, p. 538, speaks of "cromnysmantia," a kind of divination with onions laid on the altar at Christmas Eve, practised by girls, to know when they shall be married, and how many husbands they shall have. This appears also to have been a German custom.' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 3, p. 356.]

[118] [CN, p. 244. 'Onions, "In buying onions always go in by one door of the shop, and come out by another. Select a shop with two doorways. These onions, placed under your pillow on St. Thomas's Eve, are sure to bring visions of your true-love, your future husband." (London, &c.)']

[119] [Title unknown. Not in Duke. Source.]

[120] ['A superstitious notion appears anciently to have prevailed in England, that "whatsoever one did ask of God upon Whitsunday morning, at the instant when the sun arose and play'd, God would grant it him." See Arise Evans's Echo to the Voice from Heaven; or, a Narration of his Life, 1652, p. 9. He says, "he went up a hill to see the sun rise betimes an Whitsunday morning," and saw it at its rising "skip, play, dance, and turn about like a wheel."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 283.]

[121] [Poste, Celtic Inscriptions on Gaulish and British Coins, pl. 7, coin 5.]

[122] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 585.]

[123] [Jamieson, An Historical Account of the Ancient Culdees, p. 112. 'Carpull is now written and pronounced Carpow, the name still given to a gentleman's seat here. Hence we may have some notion of the former extent of Abernethy, now reduced to a poor village. Carpow is about a mile east from the present town. The situation of Ethan, called Athan in the Pictish Chronicle, seems to be now unknown. The limits mentioned in this extract, may indeed denote only the extent of the territory annexed to Abernethy. But, according to tradition, the vestiges of streets and buildings have been discovered a great way to the east of the present town.' Or p. 88 of 1890, pop. ed.]

[124] [In Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids.]

[125] [Ancient Welsh Poem by G.W.—Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids.]

[126] [Aneurin or Aneirin, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids.]

[127] [See Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 292, for authorities.]

[128] ['The following most curious passage from the "Status Scholae Etonensis," A.D. 1560, shows that in the Papal times the Eton scholars (to avoid interfering, as it should seem, with the boy-bishop of the college there on St. Nicholas's Day,) elected their boy-bishop on St. Hugh's Day, in the month of November. St. Hugh was a real boy-bishop at Lincoln. His day was on November 17th.' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 431.]

[129] [Ancient Welsh Poem by Gwarchan Maelderw, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids.]

[130] ['And in the Gent. Mag. 156, "The manner of making freemen of Alnwick Common is not less singular than ridiculous. The persons that are to be made free, or, as the phrase is, that are to leap the well, assemble in the market-place very early in the morning, on the 25th of April, being St. Mark's day. They are on horseback, with every man his sword by his side, dressed in white with white nightcaps, and attended by the four Chamberlains and the Castle Bailiffe, who are also mounted and armed in the same manner. From the market-place they proceed in great order, with musick playing before them, to a large dirty pool, called the Freemen's Welly on the confines of the Common. Here they draw up in a body, at some distance from the water, and then, all at once, rush into it, like a herd of swine, and scramble through the mud as fast as they can. As the water is generally breast high, and very foul, they come out in a condition not much better than the heroes of the DUNCIAD after diving in Fleet Ditch; but dry cloathes being ready for them on the other side, they put them on with all possible expedition, and, then, taking a dram, remount their horses, and ride full gallop round the whole confines of the district, of which, by this achievement, they are become free. And, after having completed this circuit, they again enter the town sword in hand, and are generally met by women dressed up with ribbons, bells, and garlands of gum-flowers, who welcome them with dancing and singing, and are called timber-waits (perhaps a corruption of timbrel-waits, players on timbrels, waits being an old word for those who play on musical instruments in the streets.) The heroes then proceed in a body till they come to the house of one of their company, where they leave him, having first drank another dram; the remaining number proceed to the house of the second, with the same ceremony, and so of the rest, till the last is left to go home by himself.
    The houses of the new freemen are, on this day, distinguished by a great holly-bush, which is planted in the street before them, as a signal for their friends to assemble and make merry with them at their return. This strange ceremony is said to have been instituted by King John, in memory of his having once bogged his horse in this pool, called Freemen's Well." Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 197.
'St. Mark's Day is observed at Alnwick by a ridiculous custom in connection with the admission of freemen of the common, alleged to have reference to a visit paid by King John to Alnwick. It is said that this monarch, when attempting to ride across Alnwick Moor, then called the Forest of Aidon, fell with his horse into a bog or morass where he stuck so fast that be was with great difficulty pulled out by some of his attendants.
    Incensed against the inhabitants of that town for not keeping the roads over the moor in better repair, or at least for not placing some post or mark pointing out the particular spots which were impassable, he inserted in their charter, both by way of memento and punishment, that for the future all new created freemen should on St. Mark's Day pass on foot through that morass, called the Freemen's Well. In obedience to this clause of their charter, when any new freeman is to be made, a small rill of water which passes through the morass is kept dammed up for a day or two previous to that on which this ceremonial is to be exhibited, by which means the bog becomes so thoroughly liquified that a middle sized man is chin deep in mud and water in passing over it. Besides which, not unfrequently, holes and trenches are dug; in these, filled up and rendered invisible by the liquid mud, several freemen have fallen down and been in great danger of suffocation. In later times, in proportion as the new-made freemen are more or less popular the passage is rendered more or less difficult.
    Early in the morning of St. Mark's Day the houses of the new freemen are distinguished by a holly-tree planted before each door, as the signal for their friends to assemble and make merry with them. About eight o'clock the candidates for the franchise, being mounted on horseback and armed with swords, assemble in the market place, where they are joined by the chamberlain and bailiff of the Duke of Northumberland, attended by two men armed with halberds. The young freemen arranged in order, with music playing before them and accompanied by a numerous cavalcade, march to the west end of the town, where they deliver their swords. They then proceed under the guidance of the moorgrieves through a part of their extensive domain, till they reach the ceremonial well. The sons of the oldest freemen have the honour of taking the first leap. On the signal being given they pass through the bog, each being allowed to use the method and pace which to him shall seem best, some running, some going slow, and some attempting to jump over suspected places, but all in their turns tumbling and wallowing like porpoises at sea, to the great amusement of the populace, who usually assemble in vast numbers on this occasion. After this aquatic excursion, they remount their horses and proceed to perambulate the remainder of their large common, of which they are to become free by their achievement. In passing the open part of the common the young freemen are obliged to alight at intervals, and place a stone on a cairn as a mark of their boundary, till they come near a high hill called the Twinlaw or Tounlaw Cairns, when they set off at full speed, and contest the honour of arriving first on the hill, where the names of the freemen of Alnwick are called over. When arrived about two miles from the town they generally arrange themselves in order and, to prove their equestrian abilities, set off with great speed and spirit over bogs, ditches, rocks, and rugged declivities till they arrive at Rottenrow Tower on the confines of the town, the foremost claiming the honour of what is termed "winning the boundaries," and of being entitled to the temporary triumphs of the day. Having completed the circuits the young freemen, with sword in hand, enter the town in triumph,* preceded by music, and accompanied by a large concourse of people in carriages, &c. Having paraded the streets, the new freemen and the other equestrians enter the Castle, where they are liberally regaled, and drink the health of the lord and lady of the manor. The newly-created burgesses then proceed in a body to their respective houses, and around the holly-tree drink a friendly glass with each other. After this they proceed to the market-place, where they close the ceremony over an enlivening bowl of punch. Antiquarian Repertory, 1809, vol. iv. p. 387; History of Alnwick, 1822, pp. 304-309; Gent. Mag., 1756, vol. xxvi. p. 73.
* It appears by a traditionary account that at one time they were met by women dressed up with ribbons, bells, and garlands of gum-flowers, who welcomed them with dancing and singing; they were called timber-waits, probably a corruption of timbrel-waits, players on timbrels, waits being an old appellation for those who play on musical instruments in the street.' 
From Dyer, British Popular Customs, pp. 201-3.]

[131] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 194.]

[132] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 167.]

[133] [Gwalchmai, ARC, 202, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 168.]

[134] [Source.]

[135] [Cory, Ancient Fragments, p. 148.]

[136] [Natural History. Unable to trace.]

[137] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 421.]

[138] [Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, bk. 6. 17. 'They worship as their divinity, Mercury in particular, and have many images of him, and regard him as the inventor of all arts, they consider him the guide of their journeys and marches, and believe him to have great influence over the acquisition of gain and mercantile transactions. Next to him they worship Apollo, and Mars, and Jupiter, and Minerva; respecting these deities they have for the most part the same belief as other nations: that Apollo averts diseases, that Minerva imparts the invention of manufactures, that Jupiter possesses the sovereignty of the heavenly powers; that Mars presides over wars. To him, when they have determined to engage in battle, they commonly vow those things which they shall take in war. When they have conquered, they sacrifice whatever captured animals may have survived the conflict, and collect the other things into one place. In many states you may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots; nor does it often happen that any one, disregarding the sanctity of the case, dares either to secrete in his house things captured, or take away those deposited; and the most severe punishment, with torture, has been established for such a deed.']

[139] [Rit. ch. 24. 'When I have got the charm from each place in which I have been, of that person who has been to me, swifter than the Dogs following the Shu or the Shade ... The Osiris shoots through every place in which he has been, through a person who has been to him swifter than the Dogs following after Shade ... The Osiris has made there his charms to the person who has been to him swifter than the Dogs following Shade, or the Person of Shu.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[140] [Rit. ch. 17, on 'Two Lion Gods.' Cf. Renouf.]

[141] [The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids. See pp. 407 & 515.]

[142] [Eisenlohr, 'Great Harris Papyrus.' RP, 8, 5. See p. 24, etc.]

[143] [Brugsch, Dictionary of Geography, p. 95.]

[144] [Barddas, vol. 1, p. 218.]

[145] ['For a Life of St. David, Patron Saint of Wales, who, according to a Welsh pedigree, was son of Caredig, Lord of Cardiganshire, and his mother Non, daughter of Ynyr, of Caer Gawch, see [Wharton] Anglia Sacra, vol. ii.' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 107.]

[146] [Smith, Loch Etive, p. 105. 'But Naisi said, "I have a sword which Mananan MacLir gave me, and it leaves no remains of a blow; let us three be struck together with it, and we shall all be killed at once." So the three heads were laid on the block together, and were severed by one blow.']

[147] [Bathurst, Roman Antiquities at Lydney Park, pp. 39-40. 'DEUS NODENS. Plate XIII.
Bb. McCaul quotes from a letter from Meyrick to Lysons that 'Deus Nodens seems to be Romanised British, which correctly written in the original language would be Deus Noddyns, the "God of the abyss," or it may be "God the preserver," from the verb noddi, to preserve; both words being derived from nawdd, which signifies protection.' Prof. Jarrett, a profound Celtic scholar, to whom I applied for a translation of 'Deus Noddyns' without mentioning Meyrrick's explanation, at once rendered it as 'God of the deeps,' a sense that every circumstance confirms. With so many dedications extant to 'Deo Ceado,' 'Suli Minervae,' 'Jovi Dolicheno,' and 'Deæ Cioventinas,' and other British deities with names thus rudely Latinised, there is no necessity for our resorting, like Sir W. Drummond, to the Greek, in order to find a title for the 'Greatest God ' of the Silurians.
    The title 'God of the abyss' is well suited to the character of Deus Nodens, for that he was a sea—or river-god is placed out of all doubt by the design of the pavement, dedicated to him, be it observed, that decorates the floor of his temple. The centre is formed by two sea-serpents, represented in the usual form given by the Greek painters to the dreaded [Greek], as it is seen in the Pompeian wall-painting of Perseus and Andromeda. This sea-monster closely resembles the ichthyosaurus of geologists, with its elongated neck and pectoral paddles, or 'flippers,' which are coloured bright red in our mosaic to augment the savageness of its aspect. The field is occupied with figures of fish, evidently salmon, the chief glory of the Severn. That the most conspicuous part of the ornamentation of a temple was intended to indicate the power and attributes of the deity therein adored, is so obvious a fact, that it is mere waste of time to notice the argument based on the small figures of dogs, serpents, and the like, found in the same locality, but not necessarily belonging to the temple itself. The votive limbs and the imprecation of Silvianus are apparently more to the purpose for discovering Æsculapius here, but such offerings would be fitly dedicated to the 'Supreme God' of any people, considered in his general character of the preserver of life and giver of all good.
    There is every reason to believe that we have Deus Nodens himself figured upon this most curious bronze plaque (Pl. XIII), clearly intended for personal decoration: the most obvious purpose to which it can be assigned being that of the frontlet of the head-dress worn either by the idol itself or by the officiating priest, after the manner of the large ornamented disks of thin gold so frequently turned up in Ireland. In the centre rises a youthful deity (and therefore not 'Paunus,' who has wrongfully usurped the honours of his temple and worship in the 'Corpus Inscr. Lat.'); he is crowned with rays like Phoebus (or more probably 'his bonnet sedge,' like Camus), carries a sceptre, and is borne over the waters in a car drawn by four sea-horses, like the Roman Neptune. On each side floats in the air a winged Genius, clearly typifying the Winds, one holding forth in his right the leaf-shaped fan commonly seen in the hands of Roman ladies; the other Zephyr similarly waves a handkerchief; both grasp in the left hand the end of the shawl or chlamys, thrown loosely over each arm. Rude as is the engraving, there is a lightness and freedom in the drawing of these figures much to be admired, and expressing with great truth the airy nature of the beings it attempts to embody. Each end of the composition is filled up with a reclining Triton; the one brandishing two paddles of the very shape still employed by those that navigate the primitive British bark, the corracle; the other, an anchor, and his proper attribute, the shell-trumpet, the 'cava buccina,' assigned to him by Ovid.
    On the smaller fragment, evidently part of the same decoration, Triton is yet more distinctly represented; he is here winding a blast on his conch to call the winds to do him service, whilst he wields the anchor for sceptre; on the other side sits the votary of Nodens, the Silurian fisherman, enveloped in the hooded frieze mantle worn to this day by his brethren of Naples, and who, by the favour of the god, has just hooked a magnificent salmon.']

[148] [Ibid., pp. 45-6. 'Of these tablets Nos. 1 and 2 are on plates of bronze, of the size figured; the lettering formed by dots made with a punch (pointillé to use the more expressive French term); No. 3 is carelessly scratched with a graver upon a sheet of. lead. No specimens of the sort have been discovered in this country, except a few at York, some forty years ago, and now preserved in the local museum. Of these the only two still legible are similarly of bronze, with the letters stippled in the same manner: one is dedicated by 'Demetrius the Scribe [secretary] to the gods of the governmental palace;' the other, by the same person, 'To Ocean and his consort Tethys:' the language is Greek.
    Of the tablets found at Lydney, No. 3 is infinitely the most interesting and uncommon: it is not an expression of gratitude to the god, but the promise of a fee to him for the recovery of stolen goods. In its nature it may be compared with the leaden scrolls discovered in the 'Demetrium' at Cnidus, which similarly invoke the wrath of heaven upon certain obnoxious parties.
    As the meaning of this inscription has not been exactly detected in former publications, it will be advisable to subjoin a translation in full: 'To the god Nodens. Silvianus has lost a ring: he has made offering (vowed) half (its value) to Nodens. Amongst all who bear the name of Senecianus, refuse thou to grant health to exist, until he bring back the ring to the Temple of Nodens.' There is something very humorous to the modern mind, though doubtless grave enough in its primary intention, in this earnest appeal to divine aid in such a case. It is clear that the loser suspects Senecianus of the theft, but can produce no legal proof to compel restitution; he therefore begs the god of the abyss, who, like Serapis, was the giver of health, to afflict Senecianus and his kith and kin with all manner of disease, until the stealer bring back the lost article and deposit it in the temple. This no doubt, was to be done secretly, so as to spare the feelings of the penitent Senecianus. The punishment invoked may seem to us out of all proportion to the offence; but we must remember that Roman rings were often very weighty, and the British provincials extremely poor. 'Silvianus' being a man of only one name, must have been a plebeian, and probably carried all the gold he ever possessed, made up into the 'uncialis' or 'semiuncialis annulus,' upon his finger.
    The blunders in the spelling are worthy of notice: the 'Devo' shows that the writer was sorely puzzled between 'Deus' and 'Divus,' and so compromised the matter by uniting both; whilst the 'demediam' for 'dimidiam' would make us suspect that the popular pronunciation of such words was verging into the sound of the Italian 'mezzo'—its ultimate contraction.']

[149] [Mic. 6:14. 'Thou shalt eat, but not be satisfied; and thy casting down shall be in the midst of thee; and thou shalt take hold, but shalt not deliver; and that which thou deliverest will I give up to the sword.']

[150] [Jer. 34:2. 'Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.']

[151] [Ez. 24:8. 'That it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance; I have set her blood upon the top of a rock, that it should not be covered.']

[152] [Ex. 29:20. 'Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.']

[153] [Ez. 16:33. 'They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom.']

[154] [Lev. 15:33. 'And of her that is sick of her flowers, and of him that hath an issue, of the man, and of the woman, and of him that lieth with her that is unclean.']

[155] [Dyer, British Popular Customs, p. 295. 'A very ancient custom is observed on Trinity Sunday in Carnarvonshire: the offerings of calves and lambs which happen to be born with the Nod Beuno, or mark of St. Beuno a certain natural mark in the ear, have not yet entirely ceased. They are brought to church (but formerly to the monastery*) of Clynnok Vaur on Trinity Sunday, and delivered to the churchwardens, who sell and account for them, depositing the money in a great chest, called Cyff St. Beuno, made of one oak, and secured with three locks.
    From this, the Welsh have a proverb for attempting any very difficult thing. "You may as well try to break open St. Beuno's chest." The little money resulting from the sacred beasts, or casual offerings, is applied either to the relief of the poor or in aid of repairs. Pennant, Tour through North Wales, 1781, vol. ii. p. 210.
    * This monastery was founded A.D. 616, by Guithin of Gwydaint. It was afterwards turned into a monastery of white monks, but these seem soon to have been suppressed, for, at the time of Pope Nicholas IV's taxation it was a collegiate church, consisting of five Portionists or Prebendaries, and continued so to the time of the dissolution. Leland, Itin. vol. v. p. 15; Dugdale, Monast. Anglic. 1825, vol. v. p. 631.']

[156] [Chronicle of Ethelwerd. In Giles, Six Old English Chronicles, p. 7. 'A. 508. Seven years after his arrival, Cerdic with his son Cynric slay Natan-Leod, king of the Britons, and five thousand men with him.']

[157] [Bathurst, Roman Antiquities at Lydney Park, with notes by King. See note 147 above.]

[158] [Arch. Journal, (JBAA?) 31. 41.]

[159] [Renouf, 'Tale of the Two Brothers,' RP, 2, 137.]

[160] [Goodwin, 'Tale of the Doomed Prince,' RP, 2, 153.]

[161] ['Waldron, in his description of the Isle of Man (Works, 1731, p. 128), tells us: "The old story of infants being changed in their cradles is here in such credit, that mothers are in continual terror at the thoughts of it. I was prevailed upon myself to go and see a child, who, they told me, was one of these changelings, and indeed must own was not a little surprised as well as shocked at the sight. Nothing under heaven could have a more beautiful face; but though between five and six years old, and seemingly healthy, he was so far from being able to walk or stand, that he could not so much as move any one joint: his limbs were vastly long for his age, but smaller than an infant's of six months: his complexion was perfectly delicate, and he had the finest hair in the world: he never spoke nor cryed, eat scarce any thing, and was very seldom seen to smile; but if any one called him a fairy-elf he would frown, and fix his eyes so earnestly on those who said it, as if he would look them through. His mother, or at least his supposed mother, being very poor, frequently went out a chairing, and left him a whole day together: the neighbours, out of curiosity, have often looked in at the window to see how he behaved when alone, which, whenever they did, they were sure to find him laughing, and in the utmost delight. This made them judge that he was not without company more pleasing to him than any mortal's could be; and what made this conjecture seem the more reasonable, was, that if he were left ever so dirty, the woman at her return saw him with a clean face, and his hair combed with the utmost exactness and nicety." He mentions (ibid. p. 132,) "Another woman, who, being great with child, and expecting every moment the good hour, as she lay awake one night in her bed, she saw seven or eight little women come into her chamber, one of whom had an infant in her arms. They were followed by a man of the same size, in the habit of a minister." A mock christening ensued, and "they baptized the infant by the name of Joan, which made her know she was pregnant of a girl, as it proved a few days after, when she was delivered."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 75.]

[162] ['Mother Bunch mentions "the old experiment of the Midsummer shift." It is thus: "My daughters, let seven of you go together on a Midsummer's Eve, just at sunset, into a silent grove, and gather every one of you a sprig of red sage, and return into a private room, with a stool in the middle: each one having a clean shift turned wrong side outwards, hanging on a line across the room, and let every one lay their sprig of red sage in a clean basin of rose-water set on the stool; which done, place yourselves in a row, and continue until twelve or one o'clock, saying nothing, be what it will you see; for, after midnight, each one's sweetheart or husband that shall be, shall take each maid's sprig out of the rose-water, and sprinkle his love's shift; and those who are so unfortunate as never to be married, their sprigs will not be moved, but in lieu of that, sobs and sighs will be heard. This has been often tried, and never failed of its effects." Another edition of Mother Bunch says: "On Midsummer Eve three or four of you must dip your shifts in fair water, then turn them wrong side outwards, and hang them on chairs before the fire, and lay some salt in another chair, and speak not a word. In a short time the likeness of him you are to marry will come and turn your smocks, and drink to you; but, if there be any of you will never marry, they will hear a bell, but not the rest."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 334.]

[163] [Hanes Taliesin, ch. 2. From Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 213.]

[164] [Taliesin, 'Kadair Teyn On,' ARC, 65. From Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 530.]

[165] [Aneirin, Gododin, song 15. From Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 640.]

[166] [Stuart, The Sculptured Stones of Scotland, pp. 90-1.]

[167] [Histories, bk. 2:91. 'At Chemmis, however, which is a large city in the Thebaic canton, near Neapolis, there is a square enclosure sacred to Perseus, son of Danaë. Palm trees grow all round the place, which has a stone gateway of an unusual size, surmounted by two colossal statues, also in stone. Inside this precinct is a temple, and in the temple an image of Perseus. The people of Chemmis say that Perseus often appears to them, sometimes within the sacred enclosure, sometimes in the open country: one of the sandals which he has worn is frequently found—two cubits in length, as they affirm—and then all Egypt flourishes greatly. In the worship of Perseus Greek ceremonies are used; gymnastic games are celebrated in his honour, comprising every kind of contest, with prizes of cattle, cloaks, and skins. I made inquiries of the Chemmites why it was that Perseus appeared to them and not elsewhere in Egypt, and how they came to celebrate gymnastic contests unlike the rest of the Egyptians: to which they answered, "that Perseus belonged to their city by descent. Danaüs and Lynceus were Chemmites before they set sail for Greece, and from them Perseus was descended," they said, tracing the genealogy; "and he, when he came to Egypt for the purpose" (which the Greeks also assign) "of bringing away from Libya the Gorgon's head, paid them a visit, and acknowledged them for his kinsmen—he had heard the name of their city from his mother before he left Greece—he bade them institute a gymnastic contest in his honour, and that was the reason why they observed the practice."' Tr., Rawlinson.
'This rule is observed by most of the Egyptians; but there is a large city named Chemmis in the Theban district near Neapolis, and in this city there is a temple of Perseus the son of Danae which is of a square shape, and round it grow date-palms: the gateway of the temple is built of stone and of very great size, and at the entrance of it stand two great statues of stone. Within this enclosure is a temple-house and in it stands an image of Perseus. These people of Chemmis say that Perseus is wont often to appear in their land and often within the temple, and that a sandal which has been worn by him is found sometimes, being in length two cubits, and whenever this appears all Egypt prospers. This they say, and they do in honour of Perseus after Hellenic fashion thus,—they hold an athletic contest, which includes the whole list of games, and they offer in prizes cattle and cloaks and skins: and when I inquired why to them alone Perseus was wont to appear, and wherefore they were separated from all the other Egyptians in that they held an athletic contest, they said that Perseus had been born of their city, for Danaos and Lynkeus were men of Chemmis and had sailed to Hellas, and from them they traced a descent and came down to Perseus: and they told me that he had come to Egypt for the reason which the Hellenes also say, namely to bring from Libya the Gorgon's head, and had then visited them also and recognised all his kinsfolk, and they said that he had well learnt the name of Chemmis before he came to Egypt, since he had heard it from his mother, and that they celebrated an athletic contest for him by his own command.' Tr., Macauley. See also BB 1:97.]

[168] [Gibson's Camden, col. 803, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 300.]

[169] [Mishna, t. 11. ch. 2.]

[170] [Horrack, 'Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys,' RP, 2, 117. See p. 123.]

[171] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 313.]

[172] [The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 315.]

[173] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch. 54.]

[174] [Rit. ch. 17. 'Osiris goes into Tattu, he binds the soul of the Sun there. One and the other are united. He is transformed into his soul from his two halves, who are the sustainer of his father, and Horus who dwells in the shrine.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[175] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, pp. 190, 203, 263.]

[176] [Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, vol. 5, p. 75. 'Aire and fo are titles of dignity and honour, and creat signifies knowledge, science, wisdom; and it also signifies sieve (cribrum), and it signifies writing, literary characters. It is very singular, that in Horapollo, the Egyptian symbol of wisdom, science and learning is a groupe of a sieve, a bull-rush (of which paper was made), and a stylus or pen; creat must have had the same significations in the Egyptian language, but phach-rat, in Egyptian, and pocrat or boc-rat, in Irish, signify lame in the foot, and from the double meaning of the Egyptian word, Jablonsky observes that Harpocrates is always represented lame: all these are strong evidences of our Scythians having dwelt in Egypt.']

[177] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch. 19.]

[178] [Hanes Taliesin, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 213.]

[179] [Ibid.]

[180] [ARC, 19, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 260.]

[181] [Campbell, West Highland Tales, no. 7. 'THE TALE OF CONNAL.
There was a king over Eirinn once, who was named King Cruachan, and he had a son who was called Connal MacRigh Cruachan, The mother of Connal died, and his father married another woman. She was for finishing Connal, so that the kingdom might belong to her own posterity. He had a foster mother, and it was in the house of his foster mother that he made his home. He and his eldest brother were right fond of each other; and the mother was vexed because Connal was so fond of her big son. There was a bishop in the place, and he died; and he desired that his gold and silver should be placed along with him in the grave. Connal was at the bishop's burying, and he saw a great bag of gold being placed at the bishop's head, and a bag of silver at his feet, in the grave. Connal said to his five foster brothers, that they would go in search of the bishop's gold; and when they reached the grave, Connal asked them which they would rather; go down into the grave, or hold up the flagstone. They said that they would hold up the flag. Connal went down; and whatever the squealing was that they heard, they let go the flag and they took to their soles home. Here he was, in the grave on top of the bishop. When the five of foster brothers reached the house, their mother was somewhat more sorrowful for Connal than she would have been for the five. At the end of seven mornings, there went a company of young lads to take the gold out of the bishop's grave, and when they reached the grave they threw the flag to the side of the further wall; Connal stirred below, and when he stirred they went, and they left each arm and dress they had. Connal arose, and he took with him the gold, and arms and dress, and he reached his foster mother with them. They were all merry and lighthearted as long as the gold and silver lasted.
    There was a great giant near the place, who had a great deal of gold and silver in the foot of a rock; and he was promising a bag of gold to any being that would go down in a creel. Many were lost in this way; when the giant would let them down, and they would fill the creel, the giant would not let down the creel more till they died in the hole.
    On a day of days, Connal met with the giant, and he promised him a bag of gold, for that he should go down in the hole to fill a creel with the gold. Connal went down, and the giant was letting him down with a rope; Connal filled the giant's creel with the gold, but the giant did not let down the creel to fetch Connal, and Connal was in the cave amongst the dead men and the gold.
    When it beat the giant to get another man who would go down in the hole, he sent his own son down into the hole, and the sword of light in his lap, so that he might see before him.
    When the young giant reached the ground of the cave, and when Connal saw him he caught the sword of light, and he took off the head of the young giant.
    Then Connal put gold in the bottom of the creel, and he put gold over him; and then he hid in the midst of the creel, and, he gave a pull at the rope. The giant drew the creel, and when he did not see his son, he threw the creel over the top of his head. Connal leaped out of the creel, and the black back of the giant's head (being) towards him, he laid a swift hand on the sword of light, and he took the head off the giant. Then he betook himself to his foster mother's house with the creel of gold and the giant's sword of light.
    After this, he went one day to hunt on Sliamh na leirge. He was going forwards till he went into a great cave. He saw, at the upper part of the cave, a fine fair woman, who was thrusting the flesh stake at a big lump of a baby; and every thrust she would give the spit, the babe would give a laugh, and she would begin to weep. Connal spoke, and he said,—"Woman, what ails thee at the child without reason?" "Oh," said she, "since thou art an able man thyself, kill the baby and set it on this stake, till I roast it for the giant." He caught hold of the baby, and he put a plaid that he had on about the babe, and he hid the baby at the side of the cave.
    There were a great many dead bodies at the side of the cave, and he set one of them on the stake, and the woman was roasting it.
    Then was heard under. ground trembling and thunder coming, and he would rather that he was out. Here he sprang in the place of the corpse that was at the fire, in the very midst of the bodies, The giant came, and he asked, "Was the roast ready?" He began to eat, and he said, "Fiu fau hoagrich; it's no wonder that thy own flesh is tough; it is tough on thy brat."
    When the giant had eaten that one, he went to count the bodies; and the way he had of counting them was, to catch hold of them by the two smalls of the leg, and to toss them past the top of his head; and he counted them back and forwards thus three or four times and as he found Connal somewhat heavier, and that he was soft and fat, he took that slice out of him from the back of his head to his groin. He roasted this at the fire, and he ate it, and then he fell asleep. Connal winked to the woman to set the flesh stake in the fire. She did this, and when the spit grew white after it was red, he thrust the spit through the giant's heart, and the giant was dead.
    Then Connal went and he set the woman on her path homewards, and then he went home himself. His stepmother sent him and her own son to steal the whitefaced horse from the King of Italy, "Eadailt;" and they went together to steal the whitefaced horse, and every time they would lay hand on him, the whitefaced horse would let out an ialt (neigh?). A "company" came out, and they were caught. The binding of the three smalls was laid on them straitly and painfully. "Thou big red man," said the king, "wert thou ever in so hard a case as that?" "A little tightening for me, and a loosening for my comrade, and I will tell thee that," said Connal.
    The Queen of the Eadailt was beholding Connal.
    Then Connal said:
    "Seven morns so sadly mine,
    As I dwelt on the bishop's top,
    That visit was longest for me,
    Though I was the strongest myself.
    At the end of the seventh morn
    An opening grave was seen,
    And I would be up before
    The one that was soonest down.
    They thought I was a dead man,
    As I rose from the mould of earth
    At the first of the harsh bursting
    They left their arms and their dresses,
    I gave the leap of the nimble one,
    As I was naked and bare.
    'Twas sad for the, a vagabond,
    To enjoy the bishop's gold."
    "Tighten well, and right well," said the king; "it was not in one good place that he ever was; great is the ill he has done." Then he was tightened somewhat tighter, and somewhat tighter and the king said, "Thou great red man, wert thou ever in a harder case than that?" "Tighten myself, and let a little slack with this one beside me, and I will tell thee that."
    They did that. "I was," said he,
    "Nine morns in the cave of gold;
    My meat was the body of bones,
    Sinews of feet and hands.
    At the end of the ninth morn
    A descending creel was seen;
    Then I caught hold on the creel,
    And laid gold above and below;
    I made my biding within the creel,
    I took with me the glaive of light,
    The luckiest turn that I did."
    They gave him the next tightening, and the king asked him, "Wert thou ever in case, or extremity, as hard as that?" "A little tightening for myself, and a slack for my comrade, and I will tell thee that."
    They did this.
    "On a day on Sliabh na leirge,
    As I went into a cave,
    I saw a smooth, fair, mother-eyed wife,
    Thrusting the stake for the flesh
    At a young unreasoning child. 'Then,' said I,
    'What causes thy grief, oh wife,
    At that unreasoning child?'
    'Though he's tender and comely,' said she,
    'Set this baby at the fire.'
    Then I caught bold on the boy,
    And wrapped my 'maundal' around;
    Then I brought up the great big corpse
    That was up in the front of the heap;
    Then I heard, Turstar, Tarstar, and Turaraich,
    The very earth mingling together
    But when it was his to be fallen
    Into the soundest of sleep,
    There fell, by myself, the forest fiend
    I drew back the stake of the roast,
    And I thrust it into his maw."
    There was the Queen, and she was listening to each thing that Connal suffered and said; and when she heard this, she sprang and cut each binding that was on Connal and on his comrade: and she said, "I am the woman that was there;" and to the king, "thou art the son that was yonder."
    Connal married the king's daughter, and together they rode the whitefaced horse home; and there I left them.']

[182] [Saturnalia, bk. 1.20.]

[183] [Rit. ch. 83. The word 'rebels' only appears in ch. 95; 'I AM the victorious lord against the rebels, being as it were the guardian of the crown against the rebels.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[184] [Campbell, West Highland Tales, no. 29. 'THE FINE.
THE Feen were once, and their hunting failed, and they did not know what they should do. They were going about strands and shores gathering limpets, and to try if they should fall in with a pigeon or a plover. They were holding counsel together how they should go to get game. They reached a hill, and sleep came on them. What should Fionn see but a dream. That it was at yon crag of rock that be would be, the longest night that came or will come; that he would be driven backwards till he should set his back to the crag of rock. He gave a spring out of his sleep. He struck his foot on Diarmid's mouth, and he drove out three of his teeth. Diarmid caught hold of the foot of Fionn, and he drove an ounce of blood from every nail he had. "Ud! what didst thou to me?"—"What didst thou thyself to me?"—"Be not angry, thou son of my sister. When I tell thee the reason, thou wilt not take it ill."—"What reason?"—"I saw a dream that at yonder crag I would pass the hardest night I ever passed; that I should be driven backwards till I should set my back to the crag, and there was no getting off from there." "What's our fear! Who should frighten us! Who will come!" "I fear, as we are in straits just now, that if this lasts we may become useless." They went and they cast lots who should go and who should stay. The Feinn altogether wished to go. Fionn was not willing to go, for fear the place should be taken out before they should come (back). "I will not go," said Fionn. "Whether thou goest or stayest, we will go," said they.
    The rest went, but Fionn did not go. They stopped, on the night when they went, at the root of a tree; they made a booth, and they began to play at cards. Said Fionn, when the rest were gone, "I put him from amongst heroes and warriors any man that will follow me out." They followed after Fionn. They saw a light before them, and they went forward where the light was. Who were here but the others playing at cards, and some asleep; and it was a fine frosty night. Fionn hailed them so stately and bravely. When they heard. the speaking of Fionn, those who were laid down tried to rise, and the hair was stuck to the ground. They were pleased to see their master. Pleasant to have a stray hunting night. They went home. Going past a place where they used to house, they saw a house. They asked what house was that. They told them there was the house of a hunter. They reached the house, and there was but a woman within, the wife of the fine green kirtle. She said to them, "Fionn, son of Cumal, thou art welcome here." They went in. There were seven doors to the house. Fionn asked his gillies to sit in the seven doors. They did that. Fionn and his company sat on the one side of the house to breathe. The woman went out. When she came in, she said, "Fionn, son of Cumal, it is long since I was wishing thy welfare, but its little I can do for thee to-night. The son of the king of the people of Danan is coming here, with his eight hundred full heroes, this night." "Yonder side of the house be theirs, and this side ours, unless there come men of Eirinn." Then they came, and they sat within. "You will not let a man on our side," said Fionn, "unless there comes one that belongs to our own company." The woman came in again, saying, "The middle son of the king of the people of Danan is coming, and his five hundred brave heroes with him." They came, and more of them staid without on a knoll. She came in again, saying, "The youngest son of the king of the people of Danan is coming, and his five hundred swift heroes with him." She came in again, saying, "That Gallaidh was coming, and five hundred full heroes."—"This side of the house be ours, and that be theirs, unless there come of the men of Eirinn." The people of Danan made seven ranks of themselves, and the fourth part of them could not cram in. They were still without a word. There came a gillie home with a boar that had found death from leanness and without a good seeming, and he throws that in front of Fionn with an insult. One of Fionn's gillies caught hold of him, and he tied his four smalls, and threw him below the board, and they spat on him. "Loose me, and let me stand up; I was not in fault, though it was I that did it, and I will bring thee to a boar as good as thou ever ate."—"I will do that," said Fionn; "but though thou shouldst travel the five-fifths of Eirinn, unless thou comest before the day comes, I will catch thee." They loosed him; he went away, and gillies with him. They were not long when they got a good boar. They came with it, and they cooked it, and they were eating it. "A bad provider of flesh art thou," said Gallaidh to Fionn. "Thou shalt not have that any longer to say;" and the jawbone was in his hand. He raised the bone, and he killed seven men from every row of the people of Danan, and this made them stop. Then a gillie came home, and the black dog of the people of Danan with him, seeking a battle of dogs. Every one of them had a pack of dogs, and a dozen in every pack. The first one of them went and slipped the first dozen. The black dog killed the dozen; he killed them by the way of dozen and dozen, till there was left but Bran in loneliness. Said Fionn to Conan, "Let slip Bran, and, unless Bran makes it out, we are done." He loosed him. The two dogs began at each other. It was not long till Bran began to take driving; they took fear when they saw that; but what was on Bran but a venomous claw. There was a golden shoe on the claw of Venom, and they had not taken off the shoe. Bran was looking at Conan, and now Conan took off the shoe; and now he went to meet the black dog again; and at the third "spoch" he struck on him; he took his throat out. Then he took the heart and the liver out of his chest. The dog took out to the knoll; he knew that foes were there. He began at them. A message came in to Fionn that the dog was doing much harm to the people without. "Come," said Fionn to one of the gillies, "and check the dog." The gillie went out, and (was) together with the dog; a message came in that the gillie was working worse than the dog. From man to man they went out till Fionn was left within alone. The Feen killed the people of Danan altogether. The lads of the Feen went out altogether, and they did not remember that they had left Fionn within. When the children of the king saw that the rest were gone, they said that they would get the head of Fionn and his heart. They began at him, and they drove him backwards till he reached a crag of rock. At the end of the house he set his back to it, and he was keeping them off. Now he remembered the dream He was tightly tried. Fionn had the "Ord Fianna," and when he was in extremity it would sound of itself, and it would be heard in the five-fifths of Eirinn. The gillies heard it; they gathered and returned. He was alive, and he was no more. They raised him on the point of their spears: he got better. They killed the sons of the king, and all that were alive of the people, and they got the chase as it ever was.']

[185] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 418.]

[186] ['Martin, in his description of the Western Islands, 1716, p. 119, mentions an ancient custom observed on the second of February: "The mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats and dress it up in woman's apparel, put it in a large basket, and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call Briid's Bed; and then the mistress and servants cry three times, Briid is come, Briid is welcome. This they do just before going to bed, and when they rise in the morning they look among the ashes, expecting to see the impression of Briid's club there; which if they do, they reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous year, and the contrary they take as an ill omen."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 51.]

[187] [Scott, Tales and Tradition of Tenby, p. 19.]

[188] [See note below.]

[189] ['Battle of Ardderyd,' in Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, p. 369.]

[190] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 621.]

[191] [Unable to trace.]

[192] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 276.]

[193] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 513.]

[194] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 517.]

[195]  [Talbot, 'Bel and the Dragon,' RP, 9, 135. See p. 140.]

[196] [Rit. ch. 17. 'The Osiris has filled the Eye after he went and woke it the day of contending of the two Lion-Gods. Let him explain it. It is the day of the battle between Horus and Set, when [Set] he puts forth the ropes against Horus, when Horus has [not] taken the gemelli of Set. Thoth did the same with his own fingers.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[197] [Historia Brittonum, ch. 50. 'Then it was, that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And though there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander, and was as often conqueror. The first battle in which he was engaged, was at the mouth of the river Gleni. The second, third, fourth, and fifth, were on another river, by the Britons called Duglas, in the region Linuis. The sixth, on the river Bassas. The seventh in the wood Celidon, which the Britons call Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth was near Gurnion castle, where Arthur bore the image of the Holy Virgin, mother of God, upon his shoulders, and through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the holy Mary, put the Saxons to flight, and pursued them the whole day with great slaughter. The ninth was at the City of Legion, which is called Cair Lion. The tenth was on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit. The eleventh was on the mountain Breguoin, which we call Cat Bregion. The twelfth was a most severe contest, when Arthur penetrated to the hill of Badon. In this engagement, nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, no one but the Lord affording him assistance. In all these engagements the Britons were successful. For no strength can avail against the will of the Almighty.' Giles' tr.]

[198] [Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, bk. 6 ch. 17. 'They worship as their divinity, Mercury in particular, and have many images of him, and regard him as the inventor of all arts, they consider him the guide of their journeys and marches, and believe him to have great influence over the acquisition of gain and mercantile transactions. Next to him they worship Apollo, and Mars, and Jupiter, and Minerva; respecting these deities they have for the most part the same belief as other nations: that Apollo averts diseases, that Minerva imparts the invention of manufactures, that Jupiter possesses the sovereignty of the heavenly powers; that Mars presides over wars. To him, when they have determined to engage in battle, they commonly vow those things which they shall take in war. When they have conquered, they sacrifice whatever captured animals may have survived the conflict, and collect the other things into one place. In many states you may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots; nor does it often happen that any one, disregarding the sanctity of the case, dares either to secrete in his house things captured, or take away those deposited; and the most severe punishment, with torture, has been established for such a deed.']

[199] [Rit. ch. 44. Not this ch. Possibly ch. 125 where Thoth is described as follows: 'Thou art called Reckoner of the Earth. Explain; the Reckoner of the Earth is Thoth.' Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf.]

[200] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 264.]

[201] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, pp. 263-4.]

[202] [Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. 1, p. 296.]

[203] [Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. 1, p. 275.]

[204] [Battle of the Trees, in Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 538, and in Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. 1, p. 281.]

[205] [Chair of Keridwen, in Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. 1, p. 297.]

[206] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, pp. 263-4.]

[207] [A New System, or, An Analysis of Ancient Mythology, (2nd ed.), vol. 2, p. 323. 'In respect to Typhon, it must be confessed that the history given of him is attended with some obscurity. The Grecians have comprehended several characters under one term, which the Egyptians undoubtedly distinguished. The term was used for a title, as well as a name: and several of those personages, who had a relation to the Deluge, were styled Typhonian, or Diluvian. All these the Grecians have included under one and the fame name, Typhon. The real Deity, by whom the Deluge was brought upon the earth, had the appellation of Typhonian; by which was meant Diluvii Deus. It is well known that the Ark was constructed by a divine commission: in which, when it was compleated, God inclosed the Patriarch and his family.'
And Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 142.]

[208] [Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 91.]

[209] [Rit. ch. 1. Cf. Renouf.]

[210] [Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, bk. 6 ch. 17. 'They worship as their divinity, Mercury in particular, and have many images of him, and regard him as the inventor of all arts, they consider him the guide of their journeys and marches, and believe him to have great influence over the acquisition of gain and mercantile transactions. Next to him they worship Apollo, and Mars, and Jupiter, and Minerva; respecting these deities they have for the most part the same belief as other nations: that Apollo averts diseases, that Minerva imparts the invention of manufactures, that Jupiter possesses the sovereignty of the heavenly powers; that Mars presides over wars. To him, when they have determined to engage in battle, they commonly vow those things which they shall take in war. When they have conquered, they sacrifice whatever captured animals may have survived the conflict, and collect the other things into one place. In many states you may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots; nor does it often happen that any one, disregarding the sanctity of the case, dares either to secrete in his house things captured, or take away those deposited; and the most severe punishment, with torture, has been established for such a deed.']

[211] [Mallet, Northern Antiquities, (new ed.), p. 289. 'When a chieftain had taken possession of a district, he allotted to each of the freemen who accompanied him a certain portion of land, erected a temple (hof), and became, as he had been in Norway, the chief, the pontiff, and the judge of the herad. Such a chieftain was called a godi or hofgodi, and all to whom he had allotted land were bound to accompany him on his journeys, and to pay a tax for the support of the temple. We thus find these sacerdotal magistrates appearing at the public assemblies with a number of armed followers, not retainers, but odal-born freemen. When they went on their private affairs, they were generally accompanied by their retainers and guests, and we rarely meet with an instance either of a godi or a wealthy landowner going out alone. The whole frame of society in Iceland was, in fact, essentially aristocratic. The laws only recognised four classes, as in Norway; freemen, unfree, freedmen, and thralls, but among the freemen themselves a distinction was made between the godar or pontiff chieftains, and the opulent landed proprietors called stormenn, or magnates, who had also taken possession of extensive territories, and allotted land to their followers, and a still greater distinction between these and the less wealthy freeholders to whom, generally speaking, land had been allotted.']

[212] [Description of Greece, bk. 10, 12. 'Seventy stades distant from Tithorea is a temple of Asclepius, called Archagetas (Founder).']

[213] [ARC, 2. 4 and 26. Davies, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 198.]

[214] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch. 43.]

[215] [Saxon MS. in Earle, Gloucester Fragments, p. ?]

[216] ['GRANGER, in his Biographical History of England, iii. 54, quotes the following passage from Sir John Birkenhead's Assembly Man: "As many Sisters flock to him as at Paris on St. Margaret's Day, when all come to church that are or hope to be with child that year."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 345.]

[217] [Pierret, Vocabulaire Hieroglyphique, 'Knufi.']

[218] ['P. 109, he says: "It was an ancient custom among the islanders to hang a he-goat to the boat's mast, hoping thereby to procure a favourable wind."' From Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 319.]

[219] [Knight, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, pp. 216-20. 'At these meetings, sometimes, but rarely, Satan was absent, in which case a little devil took his place. De Lancre enumerates the various forms which the devil usually assumed on these occasions, with the remark that these forms were as numerous as "his movements were inconstant, full of uncertainty, illusion, deception, and imposture." Some of the witches he examined, among whom was a girl thirteen years of age, named Marie d'Aguerre, said that at these assemblies there appeared a great pitcher or jug in the middle of the Sabbath, and that out of it the devil issued in the form of a goat, which suddenly became so large that it was "frightful," and that at the end of the Sabbath he returned into the pitcher. Others described him as being like the great trunk of a tree, without arms or feet, seated in a chair, with the face of a great and frightful looking man. Others spoke of him as resembling a great goat, with two horns before and two behind, those before turned up in the semblance of a woman's perruque. According to the most common account, De Lancre says he had three horns, the one in the middle giving out a flame, with which he used at the Sabbath to give both light and fire to the witches, some of whom who had candles lit them at his horn, in order to hold them at a mock service of the mass, which was one of the devil's ceremonies. He had also, sometimes, a kind of cap or hat over his horns. "He has before him his member hanging out, which he exhibits always a cubit in length; and he has a great tail behind, with a form of a face under it, with which face he does not utter a word, but it serves only to offer to kiss to those he likes, honouring certain witches of either sex more than the others." The devil, it will be observed, is here represented with the symbol of Priapus. Marie d'Aspilecute, aged nineteen years, who lived at Handaye, deposed that the first time she was presented to the devil she kissed him on this face behind, beneath a great tail, and that she repeated the kiss three times, adding that this face was made like the muzzle of a goat. Others said that he was shaped like a great man, "enveloped in a cloudiness, because he would not be seen clearly," and that he was all "flamboyant," and had a face red like an iron coming out of the furnace. Corneille Brolic, a lad of twelve years of age, said that when he was first introduced to him he had the human form, with four horns on his head, and without arms. He was seated in a pulpit, with some of the women, who were his favourites, always near him. "And they are all agreed that it is a great pulpit, which seems to be gilt and very pompous." Janette d'Abadie, of Siboro, sixteen years old, said that Satan had a face before and another behind his head, as they represent the god Janus. De Lancre had also heard him described as a great black dog, as a large ox of brass lying down, and as a natural ox in repose.
    Although it was stated that in former times the devil had usually appeared in the form of a serpent,—another coincidence with the priapic worship,—it appears certain that in the time of De Lancre his favourite form of showing himself was that of a goat. At the opening of the Sabbath the witches, male or female, presented formally to the devil those who had never been at the Sabbath before, and the women especially brought to him the children whom they allured to him. The new converts, the novices, were made to renounce Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the faints, and they were then re-baptized with mock ceremonies. They next performed their worship to the devil by kissing him on the face under the tail, or otherwise. The young children were taken to the edge of a stream—for the scene was generally chosen on the banks of a stream—and white wands were placed in their hands, and they were entrusted with the care of the toads which were kept there, and which were of importance in the subsequent operations of the witches. The renunciation was frequently renewed, and in some cases it was required every time the witch attended the Sabbath. Janette d'Abadie, a girl of sixteen, said that he made her repeatedly go through the ceremony of kissing him on the face, and afterwards on the navel, then on the virile member, and then on the posteriors. After rebaptism, he put his mark on the body of his victim, in some covered part where it was not likely to be seen. In women it was often placed on or within the sexual parts.
    De Lancre's account of the proceedings at the Sabbath is very full and curious. He says that it "resembled a fair of merchants mingled together, furious and in transports, arriving from all parts—a meeting and mingling of a hundred thousand subjects, sudden and transitory, novel, it is true, but of a frightful novelty, which offends the eye and sickens you. Among these same subjects some are real, and others deceitful and illusory. Some are pleasing (but very little), as are the little bells and melodious instruments of all forts, which only tickle the ear and do not touch the heart at all, confiding more in noise which amazes and stuns than in harmony which pleases and rejoices, the others displeasing, full of deformity and horror, tending only to desolation, privation, ruin, and destruction, where the persons become brutish and transformed to beasts, losing their speech while they are in this condition, and the beasts, on the contrary, talk, and seem to have more reason than the persons, each being drawn out of his natural character."
    The women, according to De Lancre, were the active agents in all this confusion, and had more employment than the men. They rushed about with their hair hanging loose, and their bodies naked; some rubbed with the magical ointment, others not. They arrived at the Sabbath, or went from it, on their errands of mischief, perched on a stick or besom, or carried upon a goat or other animal, with an infant or two behind, and guided or driven on by the devil himself. "And when Satan will transport them into the air (which is an indulgence only to the most superior), he sets them off and launches them up like fired rockets, and they repair to and dart down upon the said place a hundred times more rapidly than an eagle or a kite could dart upon its prey."
    These women, on their arrival, reported to Satan all the mischief they had perpetrated. Poison, of all kinds and for all purposes, was there the article most in vogue. Toads were said to form one of its ingredients, and the charge of these animals, while alive, was given to the children whom the witches brought with them to the Sabbath, and to whom, as a fort of ensign of office, little white rods were given, "just such as they give to persons infected with the plague as a mark of their contagion."
    The devil was the sovereign master of the assembly, and appeared at it sometimes in the form of a stinking and bearded goat, as one, De Lancre says, which was especially repulsive to mankind. The goat, we know, was dedicated to Priapus. Sometimes he assumed a form, if we clearly understand De Lancre, which presented a confused idea of something between a tree and a man, which is compared, for he becomes rather poetical, to the old decayed cypresses on the summit of a high mountain, or to aged oaks whose heads already bear the marks of approaching decay.
    When the devil appeared in human form, that form was horribly ugly and repulsive, with a hoarse voice and an imperious manner. He was seated in a pulpit, which glittered like gold; and at his side fat the queen of the Sabbath, one of the witches whom he had debauched, to whom he chose to give greater honour than to the others, and whom he decked in gay robes, with a crown on her head, to serve as a bait to the ambition of the rest. Candles of pitch, or torches, yielded a false light, which gave people in appearance monstrous forms and frightful faces.
    Here you see false fires, through which some of the demons were first passed, and afterwards the witches, without suffering any pain, which, as explained by De Lancre, was intended to teach them not to fear the fire of hell. But we see in these the need-fires, which formed a part of the priapic orgies, and of which we have spoken before. There women are presenting to him children, whom they have initiated in sorcery, and he shows them a deep pit, into which he threatens to throw them if they refuse to renounce God and to adore Satan.']

[220] [Ibid., p. 217. As above note.]

[221] [Source.]

[222] [Knight, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus. As note 219 above.]

[223] [Egyptian Mythology, p. 80. 'Within the temple the hierophant wore the dress and mask of the god Kneph, the crier the mask of Thoth, the priest at the altar the emblem of the moon, while another with the dress of Ra carried a torch. The celebration of these mysteries, whatever their meaning was, was said to be a screen for immorality and vice, and probably with much truth.' P. 85, second ed.]

[224] [Knight, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus. As note 219 above.]

[225] [Joyce, Origin and History of Irish Names and Places, 1st ser., pp. 77-8. 'I will illustrate these remarks by an example: The city of Armagh is mentioned in numerous Irish documents, many of them of great antiquity, such as the Book of Leinster, &c., and always in the form Ard-Macha, except when the Latin equivalent is used. The oldest of these is the Book of Armagh, which is known to have been transcribed about the year 807; in this we find the name translated by Altitudo Machce, which determines the meaning, namely, Macha's height.
    But in this same Book of Armagh, as well as in many other ancient authorities, the place is mentioned in connection with St. Patrick, who is recorded to have founded the cathedral about the year 457, the site having been granted to him by Daire, the chief of the surrounding district; and as the history of St. Patrick, and of this foundation, is accepted on all hands as authentic, we have undoubted evidence that the name existed in the fifth century, though we possess no document of that age in which it is written. And even without further testimony we are able to say that it is older, for it was in use before St. Patrick's arrival, who only accepted the name as he found it.']

[226] [Book of Armagh. As above note.]

[227] [Book of Lecan. Unable to trace a 'Dinnsenchas' in this book.]

[228] [Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, second series, vol. 3, p. 85, pl. 70, 4.]

[229] [Dictionary of Hieroglyphics, (poss. p. 435).]

[230] [Fergusson, Rude Stone Monuments. For example see p. 3. 'This theory was attacked by Dr. Charleton, one of the physicians of Charles II. He had corresponded for some time with Olaus Wormius, the celebrated Danish antiquary, and struck with the similarity in form and of construction that existed between the monuments in Denmark and those of this country, he came to the conclusion that Stonehenge and other similar monuments were erected by the Danes, and consequently after the departure of the Romans. This attack on the theory of Inigo Jones raised the wrath of a Mr. Webb, by marriage a relative, who replied in a very angry treatise, in which he reiterates all Jones's arguments, and then, adding a considerable number of his own, he concludes by triumphantly—as he supposes—restoring Stonehenge to the Romans.']

[231] [Origin and History of Irish Names and Places, 1st ser., p. 81. 'The name Howth is Danish. It is written in ancient letters Hofda, Houete, and Howeth, all different forms of the northern word hoved, a head (Worsae).']

[232] [Drummond, Œdipus Judaicus, pl. 3.]

[233] [Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 2nd ser., vol. 1, p. 391. 'The Persea was sacred to her, as the Sycomore to Netpe; and in the funereal subjects of the Theban tombs, she is seen performing the same office to the deceased and his friends, as that Goddess,—giving them the fruit and drink of heaven. But the title "Lady of Het," bestowed on Athor at Thebes, Memphis, and other places, appears to signify "Lady of the tree," and not exclusively "of the Persea;" the same being applied to Netpe, to whom the Sycomore was sacred.']

[234] [Joyce, Origin and History of Irish Names and Places, 1st ser., p. 161. 'The first leader of a colony after the flood was Parthalon, who, with his followers, ultimately took up his residence on the plain anciently called Seanmhagh Ealta-Edair [Shan-va-alta-edar], the old plain of the flocks of Edar, which stretched along the coast by Dublin, from Tallaght to Edar, or Howth. The legend which is given in several very ancient authorities relates that after the people of this colony had lived there for 300 years, they were destroyed by a plague, which in one week carried off 5,000 men and 4,000 women; and they were buried in a place called, from this circumstance, Taimhleacht-Mhuintire-Parthaloin (Four Mast.), the Tamlaght or plague-grave of Parthalon's people.']

[235] [Geographia.]

[236] [Wilkinson, Materia Hieroglyphica, p. 129. 'A strong relationship exists between this goddess in one of her characters (as nurse of Horus) and Isis; whence we find Harpocrates called, son of Athor. In a papyrus, published by Monsr Champollion, she is said to be "Neith, in the eastern country and Sme. in the lotus and waters of the western country." She was also represented under the form of a spotted cow; which is frequently seen coming from behind the mountain of Thebes; and from this the Greeks probably borrowed their Venus, the daughter of Coelus and Light.']

[237] [CN, pp. 66-7. 'The perusal of a good-natured notice in The Athenaeum of December 6th, in which your contemporary suggests that communications on the subject of Folk Lore should be addressed "to N. & Q.," has reminded me of two Queries upon the subject, which I had originally intended to address to the editor of that paper, as they refer to articles which appeared in his own pages. On his hint, however, I will transfer them to your columns; and avail myself of the opportunity of thanking the editor of The Athenaeum for having for so long a period and so effectually directed the attention of the readers of that influential journal to a subject of great interest to many, and of considerable historical value. The first relates to a song sung by the children in South Wales on New Year's morning, when carrying a jug full of water newly drawn from the well. It is given in The Athenaeum, No. 1058., for the 5th Feb., 1848, and there several references will be found to cognate superstitions. My object is to ask if the song is known elsewhere; and if so, whether with any such varieties of readings as would clear some of the obscurities of the present version:
    "Here we bring new water
    From the well so clear,
    For to worship God with
    This happy New Year.
    Sing levez dew, sing levez dew,
    The water and the wine;
    The seven bright gold wires
    And the bugles they do shine.
    Sing reign of Fair Maid
    With gold upon her toe,
    Open you the West Door,
    And let the Old Year go.
    Sing reign of Fair Maid
    With gold upon her chin,
    Open you the East Door,
    And let the New Year in."']

[238] [Ibid., p. 67. As above note.]

[239] [Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, bk. 6. 17. 'They worship as their divinity, Mercury in particular, and have many images of him, and regard him as the inventor of all arts, they consider him the guide of their journeys and marches, and believe him to have great influence over the acquisition of gain and mercantile transactions. Next to him they worship Apollo, and Mars, and Jupiter, and Minerva; respecting these deities they have for the most part the same belief as other nations: that Apollo averts diseases, that Minerva imparts the invention of manufactures, that Jupiter possesses the sovereignty of the heavenly powers; that Mars presides over wars. To him, when they have determined to engage in battle, they commonly vow those things which they shall take in war. When they have conquered, they sacrifice whatever captured animals may have survived the conflict, and collect the other things into one place. In many states you may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots; nor does it often happen that any one, disregarding the sanctity of the case, dares either to secrete in his house things captured, or take away those deposited; and the most severe punishment, with torture, has been established for such a deed.']

[240] [Ibid. See above note.]