Campbell Joseph The Masks Of God Primitive Mythology

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.The relics, however, and everything else portable, were re-moved in the year 861 A.D., when the grave was plundered byScandinavian pirates, so that today nothing remains but the eeriepassage, 62 feet long, and the chamber, 21 feet from side to sideand 18 feet in depth,44 with its curious labyrinthine spirals on theTHRESHOLDS OF THE NEOLITHI C 431walls and ceiling, an interesting floor stone with two worn sockets,where a man might have been made to kneel, and the still moreinteresting circumstance that precisely at sunrise, one day in eightyears (or, at least, so the local story goes), the morning star maybe seen to rise and cast its beam precisely to the place of thestone with the two worn sockets.The tale may be true or not, butthe coincidence of eight years with the period assigned by Frazerto the reigning term of the kings of Crete gave me a shock whenI heard it; and here it is, therefore, for the reader to take or toleave as he likes or to go to Ireland, perhaps, to prove.These grave tumuli in Ireland are associated with the fairy folk,who of old were the mighty Tuatha De Danann, "the tribes orfolk of the goddess Danu." 45 Defeated in a great battle by theMilesians (the legendary ancestors of the Irish people, who aresupposed to have arrived by sea from the Near East, via Spain,about a thousand years before the birth of Christ), the people ofthe goddess withdrew from the surface of the land to the sid (pro-nounced shee), the fairy hills, where they dwell to this day inElysian bliss, and without touch of age, as the fairy folk.Deepunder ground they have built themselves timeless abodes, gloriouswith gold and ablaze with the light of glittering gems.48Danu, their mother, is again our goddess of many names.Sheis Anu, a goddess of plenty, after whom two hills in Kerry arecalled "the Paps of Anu," but who is said also to have been asavage woman devouring human beings.47 Brigit, the goddess ofknowledge, poetry, and the arts, was another aspect of this great"mother of gods," who had two sisters of the same name, con-nected with leechcraft and smithwork; and her worship is con-tinued in the Irish devotion to Saint Brigit, at whose shrine inKildare a sacred fire was maintained by nineteen nuns in turn,and on the twentieth day by the saint herself."Similar sacred fireswere kept in other monasteries," writes one of the chief authoritiesin this field.Dr.J.A.MacCulloch, "and they point to the old cultof the goddess of fire, the nuns being successors of a virgin priest-hood like the vestals, priestesses of Vesta.Brigit.must haveoriginated in a period when the Celts worshiped goddesses ratherthan gods, and when knowledge leechcraft, agriculture, inspira-432 PRIMITIVE MYTHOLOGYtion were women's rather than men's.She had a female priest-hood and men were perhaps excluded from her cult, as the tabuedshrine at Kildare suggests." 48Other famous figures of the rich fairy lore of the sid are Aine,the fairy queen at whose seat, Knockainy in Limerick, some ofthe rites connected with her former cult are still performed, onMidsummer Eve, for a fruitful harvest, and who, at one time,according to local legend, was the captured fairy-bride of theEarl of Desmond; further, Morrigan, Neman, Macha, and Badb,the goddesses of battle; likewise, the hags, the fairy mistresses, andthe washers at the ford, the banshee; and again, the White Womenwho assist in spinning.Among the Celts of ancient Gaul a feastand sacrifice were offered for every animal taken in the chase, toa goddess whom the Romans equated with Diana, who wasthought of as rushing through the forest with an attendant train,the leader of the "furious host"; and when the great pagan dayswere ended she became the leader of the witches' revels.In abronze statuette this same goddess of the Celts is shown riding awild boar, "her symbol," as MacCulloch tells us, "and, like her-self, a creature of the forest, but at an earlier time itself a divinityof whom the goddess became the anthropomorphic form." 49In fact, according to an Irish folktale told to this day in thepeasant cottages of Connaught, the ancient hero Oisin one of thesons of the fabulous giant Finn MacCool was for many days an-noyed in his fort and palace at Knock an Ar by a supernaturalfemale with a pig's head, who was always making up to him andcoming toward him, and this he did not particularly like.Andit was usual in those days as the tale goes on to tell for thegreat warriors to go hunting on the hills and mountains; andwhenever one of them did so he never neglected to take with himfive or six strong men to bring home the game.And yet it so hap-pened that on a day when Oisin had set out with his men anddogs to the woods in this way, he ranged so far and killed somuch game that when it was brought together the men were soweak, tired, and hungry that they were unable to carry it, butwent away home and left him, with his three dogs, to shift forhimself.However, the female with the pig's head who was theTHRESHOLDS OF THE NEOLI THI C 433daughter of the king of the Land of Youth and herself, indeed,the queen of Youth had been following closely in the hunt allday, and when the men departed she came up to Oisin."I am very sorry," Oisin said to her, "to leave behind anythingthat I've had the trouble of killing."And she replied, "Tie up the bundle for me and I'll carry it tolighten your load."So Oisin gave her a bundle of the game to carry and took theremainder himself; but the evening was warm and the game heavy,and when they had gone some distance, Oisin said, "Let us resta while." Both threw down their burdens, and put their backsagainst a great stone that was by the roadside.The woman washeated and out of breath and opened her dress to cool herself.Then Oisin looked at her and saw her beautiful form and herwhite bosom [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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