Celtic Mythology: History of Celts, Religion, Archeological Finds, Legends & Myths. T. W. Rolleston

In other cases in Ireland, by a spell put on the waves, or by the intuitive knowledge of the listener, it was revealed that they were wailing for a death or describing some distant event.⁵³⁸ In the beautiful song sung by the wife of Cael, "the wave wails against the shore for his death," and in Welsh myth the waves bewailed the death of Dylan, "son of the wave," and were eager to avenge it. The noise of the waves rushing into the vale of Conwy were his dying groans.⁵³⁹ In Ireland the roaring of the sea was thought to be prophetic of a king's death or the coming of important news; and there, too, certain great waves were celebrated in story—Clidna's, Tuaithe's, and Rudhraidhe's.⁵⁴⁰ Nine waves, or the ninth wave, partly because of the sacred nature of the number nine, partly because of the beneficent character of the waves, had a great importance. They formed a barrier against invasion, danger, or pestilence, or they had a healing effect.⁵⁴¹

The wind was also regarded as a living being whose power was to be dreaded. It punished King Loegaire for breaking his oath. But it was also personified as a god Vintius, equated with Pollux and worshipped by Celtic sailors, or with Mars, the war-god who, in his destructive aspect, was perhaps regarded as the nearest analogue to a god of stormy winds.⁵⁴² Druids and Celtic priestesses claimed the power of controlling the winds, as did wizards and witches in later days. This they did, according to Christian writers, by the aid of demons, perhaps the old divinities of the air. Bishop Agobard describes how the tempestarii raised tempests which destroyed the fruits of the earth, and drew "aerial ships" from Magonia, whither the ships carried these fruits.⁵⁴³ Magonia may be the upper air ruled over by a sky god Magounos or Mogounos, equated with Apollo.⁵⁴⁴ The winds may have been his servants, ruled also by earthly magicians. Like Yahweh, as conceived by Hebrew poets, he "bringeth the winds out of his treasures," and "maketh lightnings with rain."

504. Gildas ii. 4.

505. Jocelyn, Vila Kentig. c. xxxii.

506. Trip. Life, 315.

507. LL 12b. The translation is from D'Arbois, ii. 250 f; cf. O'Curry, MC ii. 190.

508. RC xxii. 400.

509. RC xii. 109.

510. Petrie, Tara, 34; RC vi. 168; LU 118.

511. Joyce, OCR 50.

512. D'Achery, Spicelegium, v. 216; Sébillot, i. 16 f., 56, 211.

513. Gregory of Tours, Hist. ii. 10, speaks of the current belief in the divinity of waters, birds, and beasts.

514. Sébillot, i. 9, 35, 75, 247, etc.

515. Joyce, SH ii. 273; Cormac, 87; Stokes, TIG xxxiii., RC xv. 307.

516. Miss Hull, 170, 187, 193; IT i. 214; Leahy, i. 126.

517. IT i. 287.

518. Henderson, Irish Texts, ii. 210.

519. Capit. Karoli Magni, i. 62; Leges Luitprand. ii. 38; Canon 23, 2nd Coun. of Arles, Hefele, Councils, iii. 471; D'Achery, v. 215. Some of these attacks were made against Teutonic superstitions, but similar superstitions existed among the Celts.

520. See Grimm, Teut. Myth. ii. 498.

521. A more tolerant note is heard, e.g., in an Irish text which says that the spirits which appeared of old were divine ministrants not demoniacal, while angels helped the ancients because they followed natural truth. "Cormac's Sword," IT iii. 220-221. Cf. p. 152, supra.

522. Cæsar, vi. 18; Pliny xxii. 14. Pliny speaks of culling mistletoe on the sixth day of the moon, which is to them the beginning of months and years (sexta luna, quae principia, etc.). This seems to make the sixth, not the first, day of the moon that from which the calculation was made. But the meaning is that mistletoe was culled on the sixth day of the moon, and that the moon was that by which months and years were measured. Luna, not sexta luna, is in apposition with quae. Traces of the method of counting by nights or by the moon survive locally in France, and the usage is frequent in Irish and Welsh literature. See my article "Calendar" (Celtic) in Hastings' Encyclop. of Religion and Ethics, iii. 78 f.

523. Delocke, "La Procession dite La Lunade," RC ix. 425.

524. Monnier, 174, 222; Fitzgerald, RC iv. 189.

525. Frazer, Golden Bough², ii. 154 f.

526. Pliny, xvi. 45; Johnson, Journey, 183; Ramsay, Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 449; Sébillot, i. 41 f.; MacCulloch, Misty Isle of Skye, 236. In Brittany it is thought that girls may conceive by the moon's power (RC iii. 452).

527. Strabo, iii. 4. 16.

528. Brand, s.v. "New Year's Day."

529. Chambers, Popular Rhymes, 35; Sébillot, i. 46, 57 f.

530. Polybius, v. 78; Vita S. Eligii, ii. 15.

531. Osborne, Advice to his Son (1656), 79; RC xx. 419, 428.

532. Aristotle, Nic. Eth.