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 While there is widespread archaeological and iconographic evidence of sky-god worship among the early Celts, there are also many examples of the worship of water spirits/gods. Rivers, lakes, wells and bogs were all centres of worship and some assumed even greater importance during Roman occupation. The Romans, like the Christian saints and monks, had a special affinity towards water which they, together with countless other ancient peoples, viewed as the source of all life, and deserving of worship. It was a healing element serving as a sure defence against evil, since no unclean thing could cross running water. Local well and water deities filled Roman-Celtic mythology and folklore. Open-air votive sites were upgraded to Roman shrines with covered temples and porticoes. The most famous example was at Roman Bath in England but was originally little more than an uncovered site of a pagan healing spring. In accordance with Celtic belief in the ‘living earth’, many rivers and lakes of the Celtic world had their own distinctive personalities. These river/lake spirits usually gave their name to the stretches of water with which they were associated – for example, the Aisne in France, from the goddess Axona, and the Boyne and the Bann in Ireland from the goddesses Bóinn and Banna. Galloway, Scotland is named after its patron Celtic goddess Deva, a goddess that might have predated the Celts. Many of these rivers and lakes were treated with awe and reverence as the dwelling places of the spirits. Gifts and offerings were thrown into the water in return for favours from the deity. Numerous Celtic artefacts have been found beneath the waters of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland and of Lake Geneva. Many of these offerings consist of weaponry and armour, perhaps signifying a request for victory in battle. Strabo also tells of many items of weaponry and treasures being thrown by Gaulish tribes into a sacred lake near Toulouse. If these treasures were to have been stolen, he alleged, disaster would have ensued. The notion of lake-worship might have persisted into early medieval times with the legend of the death of Arthur (see In Search of Ancient Heroes) that was popular throughout Britain during the 12th and 13th centuries. In one of the main fables of the Middle Ages, Arthur received the sword Excalibur from the hand of the Lady of the Lake, but must return the miraculous weapon to the water-gods before his death after the battle of Camlan. Some legends say that the lake was Dozmary Pool in Cornwall and Camlan, the ‘crooked or blind glen’, has been tentatively identified as being near Hadrian's Wall in northern England. Arthur had quite a journey before him! Even as late as the mid-19th century we have numerous accounts of both Scottish and Irish people gathering at lough shores to observe some kind of festival. At Lough Owel in County Westmeath, John O'Donovan remarked that the people gathered for what he called ‘Lake Sunday’. Unfortunately he omits to give the date of this festival. Lough Owel was the site to which the captured Viking king Turgeis, ruler of Armagh and Meath in the ninth century, was taken and ritually drowned by the High King of Ireland. Another account, given by a Mr O'Connor in his Ordnance Survey Letters mentions people’s observing Garland Sunday at Loughbarrow that perhaps hints at a folk-memory of ritual animal sacrifice in the lough waters: ‘The people . . . swim their horses in the lake on that day to defend (protect) them against accidental ills during the year and they throw spancels and halters into it which they leave there . . . they are also accustomed to throw butter into it.’Similar festivals took place at a well on the shores of Lough Neagh in which sticks and coins were thrown into both the well and the Lough to protect against or to cure disease. The same ritual is mentioned in The Statistical Survey of Scotland 1845. On the last Sunday in June, the country people of south Fermanagh and some parts of north Cavan met on the top of Binaughlin Mountain, near Florencecourt, to celebrate Bilberry Sunday. This, according to tradition, was the time when romantic matches were made and any troth plighted on that day was sure to last. The day ended with much drinking, dancing and general merriment. Of course, the festival sprang from the tradition of Irish fertility rituals but the fact that it was held on a mountaintop suggests that it was carried out under the gaze of a beneficent sky-god. It might have been thought, in former times, that the god was part of the celebration; the locals brought their festival to the very ‘house of the spirit’. The places at which these festivals were held then became sacred sites. One local claimed that a small cairn of stones used to exist halfway up Binaughlin Mountain, each stone laid there by lovers who wished to have their union blessed by the spirit of the mountain. Further stories grew up around the site such as it was a doorway to fairyland and was inhabited by a spirit named Don Binn Maguire – the fusion of anima loci and an 192 historical figure. The tale of a magical horse appearing there to issue prophecies for the coming year could be linked to the worship of Epona – (see Spirits of Earth and Air). Thus, special locations became either the habitation of a local deity or a place to which the god came to join in the merriment of festivals. In both instances, this lent the site a certain sanctity that the people respected. The Isle of the Dead Spirits of any description, it was widely reputed, could not cross clear or moving water. Therefore islands were the ideal place for wicked or vengeful spirits to dwell, restraining their powers and affording the surrounding communities a measure of protection from their dark and malicious ways. It was prudent to stay away from such places in case the spirit manifested its wrath on some unfortunate interloper within its confinement. In his book on the occult, Colin Wilson describes how the writer T.C. Lethbridge experienced the presence of one such spirit during a visit to the remote Skellig Michael, off the Kerry coast. While making his way back to the boat down dangerous cliff-steps, after visiting the monastic ruins on top of the Skellig, Lethbridge was almost pushed to his doom by an invisible force. This was not, he claims, simply his imagination running riot in the loneliness of the place. It was, he believes, a genuine attempt to kill him. Lethbridge was not the only person to experience something unnatural on this remote island; many other visitors to the place have remarked on a sense of presence there. Skellig Michael was the site of one of the early and most spectacular of the Christian anchorite settlements, allegedly founded by Saint Fionnán in the seventh or eighth century. Prior to the coming of the monks, it was believed to have been the abode of frightful demons that clung to the sheer sides of its rockface – the name ‘Skellig’ comes from the ancient Irish sceilg meaning ‘rock’. These demons were confined there but could attack anyone who attempted to land. The arrival of the holy men was said to have purged the site of this evil presence, but evidently it did not. Islands, particularly to the west, were closely connected with death and the dead. It was commonly believed among the Celts (see The Otherworld), that the Afterlife lay somewhere in the West and that this was where the spirits of the dead went. The sun set in the west, symbolising the end of life for another day and such a connection was not lost on the Celtic peoples. In British mythology, this was the location of the mystic Isle of Avalon to which King Arthur was taken after his death on the battlefield. Avalon, in medieval romance was described as The Isle of Apples. It also has an older Celtic name Ynyswitrin, meaning Isle of Glass, alluding to a mysterious crystalline Otherworld, described in several of the myth-quests of great Irish, Scottish and Welsh heroes and inhabited by spiritual beings. It is as Ynyswitrin that it is associated with Glastonbury. The custom of burying the dead on islands served a threefold purpose. It speeded them on their journey to the Isles of the Blest – the Celtic Afterlife – in the Far West and, since they could not cross water, it prevented their spirits from returning to torment the living. More practically, it prevented scavengers such as wolves from digging up or desecrating the bodies once they had been laid to rest. In the larger lakes and all around the coasts of Britain, Ireland and Brittany lie a number of tiny islands and islets that have been used for burial purposes. Inis Chonáin – Saint Conan's Island – in the middle of Loch Awe for example, has been used from ancient times. Ancient graves have also been found on Rathlin Island, close to the north Antrim coast. This island was a centre for tomb building and, perhaps, for ancestor worship. The Isle of Lismore off the Benderloch coast was originally an exclusive burial site for the early Pictish kings of that region. The name Lismore signifies ‘great garden’ and was reputed to be an unearthly garden paradise. The connections with the ‘garden’ or ‘pleasant’ Isle of Avalon in British myth are obvious. Even Iona – the cradle and centre of Celtic Christianity – had pagan origins. As the Island of Hii or Hu, it was believed to be the site on which the Celtic god of light, Lúgh, held his court. It had several important pagan shrines dedicated to the god. It might also have been a pagan burial site before Columcille's arrival, because it rapidly became the place where the majority of Scotland's kings chose to be interred. More than 48 of them, dating from Fergus II to MacBeth, are said to lie in Iona's soil at the cemetery of Reilig Odhran. A few foreign kings, mainly French and Norwegian, also lie there, making a royal total of about 60. In 1994, the Scottish Labour leader, John Smith, was also laid to rest on Iona. The sacredness of this island as a place of the dead cannot be overemphasised. This Chapter extract continues with Shrines and Sacred Sites - Part 3>>>.
From Complete Guide to Celtic Mythology by Bob Curran |
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