he profoundest instinct of the Celtic peoples is their desire to penetrate the unknown. With the sea before them, they wish to know what is to be found beyond it; they

lel to pagan initiation ceremonies-The Death and Resurrection Rite-Breton Pardons compared-Relation to Aengus Cult and Celtic cave-temples-Origin of Pu

rmed paganism within the Church itself. Various pagan cults, which also came to be more or less christianized, have been considered und

rick's

istendom as the site of St. Patrick's Purgatory. Even to-day more than in the Middle Ages it is the goal of thousands of pious pilgrims who repair thither to be purified of the a

other save the two legs, and these he threw down there. Some time later, the Fenians, while searching for Finn, passed the same spot on the lake-shore, and Cinen Moul(?), who was of their number, upon seeing the shin-bones of Finn's mother and a worm in one, said: "If that worm could get water enough it would come to something great." "I'll give it water enough," said another of the followers, and at that he flung it into the lake (later called Finn Mac Coul's lake).[541] Immediately the worm turned into an enormous water-monster. This water-monster it was that St. Patrick had to fight and kill; and, as the struggle went on, the lake ran red with the blood of the water-monster, and so the lake came to be called Loch Derg (Red Lake).' The s

e instead of the cave there is the 'Prison Chapel', the practices, though naturally much modified and corrupted, retain their primitive outlines. Patrick in his time ordered the observance of the following ceremonies by all penitents before their entrance into the original cave on Saints' Island;[542] and for a long time they were strictly carried out:-'The visitor must first go to the bishop of the diocese, declare to him that he came of his own free will, and request of him permission to make the pilgrimage. The bishop warned him against venturing any further in his design, and represented to him the perils of his undertaking; but if the pilgrim still remained steadfast in his purpose, he gave him a recommendatory letter to the prior of the island. The prior again tried to dissuade him from his design by the same arguments that had been previously urged by the bishop. If, however, the pilgrim still remained steadfast, he was taken into the church to sp

en clad in white and with heads shaven after the manner of ecclesiastics. One of them told Owain what things he would have to suffer in his pilgrimage, how unclean spirits would attack him, and by what means he could withstand them. Then the fifteen men left the knight alone, and soon all sorts of demons and ghosts and spirits surrounded him, and he was led on from one torture and trial to another by different companies of fiends. (In the original Latin legend there were four fields of punishment.) Finally Owain came to a magic bridge which appeared safe and wide, but when he reached the middle of it all the fiends and demons and unclean spirits raised so horrible a yell that he almost fell into the chasm below. He, however, reached the other shore, and the power of the devils ceased. Before him was a celestial city, and th

afe when fairies are pursuing him if he can only cross a bridge or stream. The celestial city is both like the Christian Heaven and the Sidhe world. The eating of angel food by Owain has an effect quite like that of ea

ind him, descended into the cave by a rough and steep road. 'For they say that this cave is an entrance to the shades, or at least to purgatory, where poor sinners may get their offences washed out, and return again rejoicing to the light of day.' But Forcatulus adds that 'I have learnt from cert

l and Init

ces, are required to pass the night. Among the Greeks, neophytes seeking initiation, after similar preparation, entered the cave-shrine recently discovered at Eleusis, the site of the Great Mysteries, and therein, in the sanctum sanctorum, entered into communion with the god and goddess of the lower world;[547] whereas in the original Purgatory Sir Owain and Arthur are described as having come into contact with the Hades-world and its beings. In the state cult at Acharaca, Greece, there was another cavern-temple in which initiations were conducte

rseded by Christianity; and in these caves very elaborate initiations of seven degrees were carried out. The cave itself signified the lower world, into which during the ordeals of initiation the neophyte was supposed to enter while out of the phy

is to say, there is either a symbolical presentation of death in a sacred drama-as there was among the Greeks in their complete initiatory rites-or a state of actual trance imposed upon each neophyte by the priestly initiators. The sanctum sanctorum of these primitive mysteries is sometimes in a natural or artificial cavern (as was the rule with respect to the Ancient Mysteries and St. Patrick's Purgatory on Saints' Island); sometimes in a structure specially prepared to exclude the light; or else the neophytes are symbolically or literally buried in an underground place to be

of the Aengus Cult we should probably have to name Lug, the great Irish sun-god, because of the significant fact that the purgatorial rites on Station Island come to an end on the Festival of the Assumption of the Blesse

s indeed we find they did. Thus in different Irish manuscripts various caves are mentioned,[554] and most of them, so far as they can be localized, are traditionally places of supernatural marvels, and often (as in the case of the last one enumerated, the Cave of Cruachan)

and in Stokes's Tripartite Life of Patrick (p. 242) there is a very significant reference to it. In the Mabinogion story of Kulhwch and Olwen there seems to be another traditional echo of the times when caves were used for religious rites or worship, in the author's referenc

of Purgator

erworld of shades. Pluto's realm and the realm where fairy kings and fairy queens held high revelry were the same. The difference is this: Hades was an Egyptian and in turn a Greek conception, while Fairyland was a Celtic conception; they differ as the imagination at work on a philosophical doctrine differs among the three peoples, and not otherwise. And, as Wright has shown, the origin of Purgatory in the Roman Church is very obscure. As to the

es in Honour

rn feast, as we have suggested in the preceding chapter; for both feasts originally fell on the first of November. Roman Catholic writers record that it was St. Odilon, Abbot of Cluny, who instituted in 998 in all his congregations the Fête in Commemoration of the Dead, and fixed its anniversary on the first of November; and that this fête was quickly adopted by all the churches of the East.[559] To-day in the Roman Church both the first and second of November are holy days devoted to those who have passed out of this life. The first day, the Fête of All the Saints (La Toussaint), is said to have originated thus: the Roman Pantheon-Pantheon meaning the residence of all the gods-was dedicated

converted Christians in all parts of Celtic Europe, and in many countries non-Celtic, still rendering a cult to ancestral spirits, making food offerings at the tombs of heroes, and strictly observing the very ancient November feast, or its equivalent, in honour of the dead and fairies. Then, very gradually, in the course of four centuries, the character of the Christian cults and feasts of the saints and of the dead seems to have been determined. The following citation will serve t

the Apostles in order that his soul might be benefited by the prayers offered to the saints, by the mystic sacrifice, and by the holy communion.[563] Such prayers and sacrifices for the dead were offered by the Church sometimes during thirty and even forty days, those offered on the third, the seventh, and the thirtieth days being the most solemn.[564] The history of the venerable Bede, the letters of St. Boniface, and of St. Lul prove t

clu

pirits, and to the Tuatha De Danann or Fairies. And the same set of ideas which operated among the Celts to create their Fairy-Mythology-ideas arising out of a belief in or knowledge of the one universal Realm of Spirit and its various order

TIO

THE FAIRY FAITH;