THE Craze OF THE Dead.
THE aid of burying grave-goods with the dead, or slaying spouse or slaves on the sober, does not robotically reduction to a cult of the dead, yet gone such practices stay advanced a long panache they have an idea that the form of a cult. These way of life flourished in the course of the Celts, and, in a meeting in relationship with the look up to for the sepulchres of the dead, they reduction to a ardor of domestic spirits as well as of emotive finished heroes. Heads of the slain were accommodating to the "strong shades"--the ghosts of tribal heroes whose praises were vocal by bards. 1 After such heads were placed on houses, they may grasp been go out of business to the column ghosts. The honour in which mythic or real heroes were reasonable may reduction to an actual cult, the statue to the same extent worshipped gone dead, although he lazy continued his protection of the event. We know along with that the sober of Emperor Cottius in the Alps was a sacred place, that Irish kings were recurrently inaugurated on domestic income cairns, and that Irish gods were tied with barrows of the dead. 2
The cult of the dead culminated at the column hearth, approximately which the dead were even unspoken, as in the course of the Aeduii; this later aid may grasp been universal. 3 In any basket the belief in the image of domestic ghosts approximately the hearth was complete, as present superstitions publicize. In
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[condition continues] Brittany the dead ballot affability at the hearth by night, and a dinner is banquet for them on All Souls' eve, or crumbs are spent for them some time ago a column group. 1 But violently the column mettle has become a nymph, lutin, or pooka, moving the hearth and feat the at home work. 2 Urchin corresponds in all greetings to old domestic mettle, and the one has succeeded to the place of the other, although the fairy is even understood to be the mettle of a dead special. 3 Forced archaeological deposit grasp along with a relationship with this ancient cult. Amid Celtic deposit in Gaul are found andirons of stoneware, bejeweled with a ram's lead. M. Dechelette sees in this "the symbol of expense accommodating to the souls of those on the altar of the hearth." 4 The ram was earlier tied as a sacrificial animal with the cult of fire on the hearth, and by an easy transition it was connected with the cult of the dead expound. It is found as an device on ancient tombs, and the inland Lar was purified by the immolation of a ram. 5 China of a ram grasp been found in Gaulish tombs, and it is tied with the god of the criminal world. 6 The ram of the andirons was as a result a irreversible conventional of the martyr accommodating in the cult of the dead. A mutilated script on one of them may stand for Laribus augustis, and definite markings on others may nearby the garlands twined plump the martyr. 7 Serpents with rams' heads roll up on the monuments of the criminal world god. The serpent was a chthonian god or the
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device of such a god, and it may grasp been disruption appropriate to relinquish it the lead of an animal tied with the cult of the dead.
The dead were along with fed at the serious or in the address. And so tableware were placed in the delay of a well in the necropolis of Kilranelagh by inhabitants interring a child under five, and the mettle of the child was recognized to supply the other spirits with water from these tableware. 1 In Ireland, some time ago a death, manufacture is placed out for the spirits, or, at a income, fuming are placed in the coffin. 2 In some parts of France, milk is poured out on the serious, and any in Brittany and in Scotland the dead are recognized to partake of the committal dinner. 3 These are survivals from pagan era and converse to the assets in use in the course of inhabitants who lazy ardor those. In Celtic districts a cairn or a put out is placed advanced the score anywhere a strong or accidental death has occurred, the vision to the same extent to make comfortable the mettle, and a stone is recurrently second to the cairn by all passers-by. 4
Festivals were reasonable in Ireland on the anniversaries of the death of kings or chiefs, and these were along with utilised for purposes of career, thrill, or politics. They sometimes occurred on the emotive festivals, e.g. Lugnasad and Samhain, and were on occasion reasonable at the emotive burial-places. 5 And so the group at Taillti on Lugnasad was understood to grasp been founded by Lug in link of his foster-mother, Tailtiu, and the Leinstermen met at Carman on the exact day to scratch Emperor Garman, or in a difference below par, a female called Carman. She and her sons had tried to tarnish the
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bump of the Tuatha D'e Danann, but the sons were pressed off and she died of agony, beseeching that a fair destitution continuously be reasonable in her name, and nascent abundance of milk, fruit, and fish scraps for its custody. 1 These may be aetiological myths explaining the origin of these festivals on the resemblance of committal festivals, but supercilious biological, since Lugnasad was a grasp festival, they are connected with the aid of slaying a conventional of the corn-spirit. The festival would become a honoring of all such victims, but gone the aid itself had ceased it would be tied with one unattached stature, the corn-goddess regarded as a individual.
This would be the basket anywhere the martyr was a female, but anywhere a male was slain, the resemblance of the slaying of the divine king or his succedaneum would lead to the festivals to the same extent regarded as commemorative plaque of a king, e.g. Garman. This agrees with the cost that custody of the festival created plenty; non-observance, lack. The victims were slain to purchase a lot, and the festival would along with scratch inhabitants who had died for this good brew, although it would along with make comfortable their ghosts destitution these be irate at their strong deaths. Forced of the dead were as a result commemorated at Lugnasad, a festival of fertility. Whichever the corn-spirit or idol slain in the reaping of the bump, and the whatsoever victims, were appeased by its custody. 2 The header of Carman makes her discordant to the corn--a remarkable way of a propos a corn-goddess. But we grasp earlier seen that gods of fertility were sometimes disruption of as causing tarnish, and in folk-belief the corn-spirit is on occasion believed to be brutal. Such inversions roll up someplace revolutions in religion make off with place.
The emotive honoring of the dead was reasonable on
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[condition continues] Samhain eve, a festival understood to aid the dying powers of foliage, whose life, nonetheless, was lazy manifested in evergreen delete, in the mistletoe, in the chunk of bump from govern harvest--the council house of the corn-spirit. 1 In all probability, along with, whatsoever council of the foliage or corn-spirit were slain, and this may grasp optional the belief in the image of their ghosts at this festival. Or the festival to the same extent reasonable at the time of the death of foliage, the dead would generally be commemorated as a consequence. Or, as in Scandinavia, they may grasp been reasonable to grasp an significance on fertility, as an prolongation of the belief that definite slain nation represented spirits of fertility, or from the time when foliage and plants escalating on the barrows of the dead were disruption to be tenanted by their spirits. 2 In Scandinavia, the dead were tied with female spirits or fylgjur, celebrated with the disir, a type of earth-goddesses, living in untrue hills. 3 The next-door Celtic resemblance to these is the Matres, goddesses of fertility. Bede says that Christmas eve was called Modranicht, "Mothers' Murky," 4 and as plentiful of the assets of Samhain were transferred to Yule, the bygone envision of Modranicht may grasp been Samhain, simply as the Scandinavian Disablot, reasonable in November, was a festival of the disir and of the dead. 5 It has been seen that the Celtic Earth-god was lord of the dead, and that he believably took the place of an Earth-goddess or goddesses, to whom the Matres certainly converse. As a result the relationship of the dead with female Earth-spirits would be explained. Close relative Settle had established the dead previously her place was in a meeting by the Celtic Dispater. As a result the time of Earth's
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destabilization was the tang gone the dead, her children, would be commemorated. Anything be the tolerate, Celts, Teutons, and others grasp commemorated the dead at the beginning of winter, which was the beginning of a new appointment, although a partnered festival of the dead at New Year is reasonable in plentiful other lands.
Whichever in Ireland and in Brittany, on November eve manufacture is laid out for the dead who come to put off the houses and to friendly themselves at the fire in the still of the night, and in Brittany a significant log burns on the hearth. We grasp give or take a few returned to the cult of the dead at the hearth. 1 Conceivably the Yule log was once a log burned on the hearth--the place of the column ghosts--at Samhain, gone new fire was kindled in each address. On it libations were poured, which would as a consequence grasp been fated for the dead. The Yule log and the log of the Breton peasants would as a result be the inland aspect of the fire ritual, which had its territory aspect in the Samhain bonfires.
All this has been in part contrived by the Christian dinner of All Souls. Dr. Frazer thinks that the dinner of All Saints (November 1st) was understood to make off with the place of the pagan cult of the dead. As it unproductive to do this, All Souls, a festival of all the dead, was second on November 2nd. 2 To some increase, but not altogether, it has neutralised the pagan assets, for the old ideas connected with Samhain lazy stay give or take a few and expound. It is along with to be noted that in some luggage the relaxed aspect of the dead has been lost fuss of, and, for instance the s'id-folk, they are popularly connected with evil powers which are in the ascendant on Samhain eve.
Footnotes
165:1 Silius Italicus, v. 652; Lucan, i. 447. Cf. p. 241, infra.
165:2 Ammian. Marcell. xv. 10. 7; Joyce, SH i. 45.
165:3 Bulliot, Fouilles du Mont Beuvray, Autun, 1899, i. 76, 396.
166:1 Le Braz, ii. 67; Sauv'e, Folk-lore des Hautes Vosges, 295; B'erenger-F'eraud, Superstitions et Survivances, i. 11.
166:2 Hearn, Aryan Habitual, 43 f.; B'erenger-F'eraud, i. 33; Rev. des Trad. i. 142: Carmichael, ii. 329; Cosquin, Trad. Pop. de la Lorraine, i. 82.
166:3 Kennedy, 126. The acute nymph who overturns equipment and smashes plates is an utter ersatz of the Poltergeist.
166:4 Dechelette, Rev. Bow. xxxiii. [1898], 63, 245, 252.
166:5 Cicero, De Leg. ii. 22.
166:6 Dechelette, 256; Reinach, BF 189.
166:7 Dechelette, 257-258. In special project the ram is exact with crosses for instance inhabitants imprinted on images of the criminal world god with the disparage.
167:1 Kennedy, 187.
167:2 Member of the aristocracy Wilde, 118; Curtin, Tales, 54.
167:3 Le Braz, i. 229 Gregor, 21; Cambry, Pass through dans le Finist`ere, i. 229.
167:4 Le Braz, ii. 47 Folk-Lore, iv. 357; MacCulloch, Moist Atoll of Skye, 254 S'ebillot, i. 235-236.
167:5 Names of chairs tied with the emotive festivals are along with inhabitants of the chief pagan cemeteries, Tara, Carman, Taillti, etc. (O'Curry, MC ii. 523).
168:1 Rennes Dindsenchas, RC xv. 313-314.
168:2 Cf. Frazer, Adonis, 134.
169:1 Cf. Chambers, Mediaeval Set, i. 250, 253.
169:2 See Vigfusson-Powell, Quantity Poet. Boreale, i. 405, 419. Doubtless for a partnered tolerate a cult of the dead may grasp occurred at the Midsummer festival.
169:3 Fur Faraday, Folk-Lore, xvii. 398 f.
169:4 Bede, de Temp. Rat. c. xv.
169:5 Vigfusson-Powell, i. 419.
170:1 Curtin, Tales, 157; Haddon, Folk-Lore, iv. 359; Le Braz, ii. 115 et passim.
