Читать книгу CELTIC MYTHOLOGY (Illustrated Edition) - T. W. Rolleston - Страница 98

Here some reference may be made to the Celtic cult of weapons. As has been seen, a hammer is the symbol of one god, and it is not unlikely that a cult of the hammer had preceded that of the god to whom the hammer was given as a symbol. Esus is also represented with an axe. We need not repeat what has already been said regarding the primitive and universal cult of hammer or axe,⁹⁴² but it is interesting to notice, in connection with other evidence for a Celtic cult of weapons, that there is every reason to believe that the phrase sub ascia dedicare, which occurs in inscriptions on tombs from Gallia Lugdunensis, usually with the figure of an axe incised on the stone, points to the cult of the axe, or of a god whose symbol the axe was.⁹⁴³ In Irish texts the power of speech is attributed to weapons, but, according to the Christian scribe, this was because demons spoke from them, for the people worshipped arms in those days.⁹⁴⁴ Thus it may have been believed that spirits tenanted weapons, or that weapons had souls. Evidence of the cult itself is found in the fact that on Gaulish coins a sword is figured, stuck in the ground, or driving a chariot, or with a warrior dancing before it, or held in the hand of a dancing warrior.⁹⁴⁵ The latter are ritual acts, and resemble that described by Spenser as performed by Irish warriors in his day, who said prayers or incantations before a sword stuck in the earth.⁹⁴⁶ Swords were also addressed in songs composed by Irish bards, and traditional remains of such songs are found in Brittany.⁹⁴⁷ They represent the chants of the ancient cult. Oaths were taken by weapons, and the weapons were believed to turn against those who lied.⁹⁴⁸ The magical power of weapons, especially of those over which incantations had been said, is frequently referred to in traditional tales and Irish texts.⁹⁴⁹ A reminiscence of the cult or of the magical power of weapons may be found in the wonderful "glaives of light" of Celtic folk-tales, and the similar mystical weapon of the Arthurian romances.

901. Lucan, Pharsalia, iii. 399 f.

902. Dio Cass. lxii. 7; Tac. Ann. xiv. 30.

903. Strabo, xii. 51. Drunemeton may mean "great temple" (D'Arbois, Les Celtes, 203).

904. Antient Laws of Ireland, i. 164.

905. Holder, ii. 712. Cf. "Indiculus" in Grimm, Teut. Myth. 1739, "de sacris silvarum, quas nimidas (= nemeta) vocant."

906. Livy, xxiii. 24; Polyb. ii. 32.

907. Cæsar, vi. 13, 17; Diod. Sic. v. 27; Plutarch, Cæsar, 26.

908. See examples in Dom Martin, i. 134 f.; cf. Greg. Tours, Hist. Franc. i. 30.

909. See Reinach, "Les monuments de pierre brute dans le langage et les croyances populaires," Rev. Arch. 1893, i. 339; Evans, "The Roll-Right Stones," Folk-Lore, vi. 20 f.

910. Rh^ys, HL 194; Diod. Sic. ii. 47.

911. Rh^ys, 197.

912. Joyce, OCR 246; Kennedy, 271.

913. Lucan, i. 443, iii. 399f.

914. Cicero, pro Fonteio, x. 21; Tac. Ann. xiv. 30. Cf. Pomp. Mela, iii. 2. 18.

915. O'Curry, MS. Mat. 284; Cormac, 94. Cf. IT iii. 211, for the practice of circumambulating altars.

916. Max. Tyr. Dissert. viii. 8; Lucan, iii. 412f.

917. Antient Laws of Ireland, iv. 142.

918. Rev. Arch. i. pl. iii-v.; Reinach, RC xi. 224, xiii. 190.

919. Stokes, Martyr. of Oengus, 186-187.

920. See the Twenty-third Canon of Council of Arles, the Twenty-third of the Council of Tours, 567, and ch. 65 of the Capitularia, 789.

921. Mabillon, Acta, i. 177.

922. Reinach, Rev. Arch. 1893, xxi. 335.

923. Blanchet, i. 152-153, 386.

924. Justin, xliii. 5; Strabo, xii. 5. 2; Plutarch, de Virt. Mul. xx.; Livy, v. 41.

925. Cormac, 94.

926. Keating, 356. See also Stokes, Martyr. of Oengus, 186; RC xii. 427, § 15; Joyce, SH 274 f.

927. LL 213b; Trip. Life, i. 90, 93.

928. O'Curry, MS. Mat. 284.

929. Keating, 49.

930. Jocelyn, Vita S. Kentig. 27, 32, 34; Ailred, Vita S. Ninian. 6.

931. Gildas, § 4.

932. For the whole argument see Reinach, RC xiii. 189 f. Bertrand, Rev. Arch. xv. 345, supports a similar theory, and, according to both writers, Gallo-Roman art was the result of the weakening of Druidic power by the Romans.

933. L'Abbé Hermet, Assoc. pour l'avancement des Sciences, Compte Rendu, 1900, ii. 747; L'Anthropologie, v. 147.

934. Corp. Scrip. Eccl. Lat. i. 122.

935. Monnier, 362. The image bears part of an inscription ... LIT... and it has been thought that this read ILITHYIA originally. The name is in keeping with the rites still in use before the image. This would make it date from Roman times. If so, it is a poor specimen of the art of the period. But it may be an old native image to which later the name of the Roman goddess was given.

936. Roden, Progress of the Reformation in Ireland, 51. The image was still existing in 1851.

937. For figures of most of these, see Rev. Arch. vols. xvi., xviii., xix., xxxvi.; RC xvii. 45, xviii. 254, xx. 309, xxii. 159, xxiv. 221; Bertrand, passim; Courcelle-Seneuil, Les Dieux Gaulois d'apres les Monuments Figures, Paris, 1910.

938. See Courcelle-Seneuil, op. cit.; Reinach, BF passim, Catalogue Sommaire du Musée des Ant. nat.⁴ 115-116.

939. Reinach, Catal. 29, 87; Rev. Arch. xvi. 17; Blanchet, i. 169, 316; Huchet, L'art gaulois, ii. 8.

940. Blanchet, i. 158; Reinach, BF 143, 150, 152.

941. Blanchet, i. 17; Flouest, Deux Stèles (Append.), Paris, 1885; Reinach, BF 33.

942. P. 30, supra.

943. Hirschfeld in CIL xiii. 256.

944. RC xii. 107; Joyce, SH i. 131.

945. Blanchet, i. 160 f.; Muret de la Tour, Catalogue, 6922, 6941, etc.

946. View of the State of Ireland, 57.

947. RC xx. 7; Martin, Études de la Myth. Celt. 164.

948. IT i. 206; RC ix. 144.

949. CM xiii. 168 f.; Miss Hull, 44, 221, 223.