Part 14 (1/2)

[148] _Wors.h.i.+p_.--In the Chronicle of Richard of Cirencester, ch. 4, certain Roman deities are mentioned as wors.h.i.+pped by the British druids; but it is probable the account is merely borrowed from Caesar's description of the Gauls.

[149] _Ceremonies_.--Bohn's edition, p. 431.

[150] _Wren_.--In Scotland the wren is an object of reverence: hence the rhyme--

”Malisons, malisons, more than ten, That harry the Ladye of Heaven's hen.”

But it is probable the idea and the verse were originally imported from France, where the bird is treated with special respect. There is a very interesting paper in the _Ulster Archaeological Journal_, vol. vii. p.

334, on the remarkable correspondence of Irish, Greek, and Oriental legends, where the tale of Labhradh Loinseach is compared with that of Midas. Both had a.s.ses' ears, and both were victims to the loquacious propensities of their barbers.

[151] _Etruscans_.--See _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, vol i p.

295, where the bas-reliefs are described which represent the _praeficae_, or hired mourners, wailing over the corpse.

[152] _Laid down_.--Law, Saxon, _lagu, lah_; from _lecgan_==Goth.

_lagjan_, to lay, to place; Gael. _lagh_, a law; _leag_, to lie down; Latin, _lex_, from Gr. _lego_, to lay.

[153] _It_.--Four Masters, vol. i p. 133. The Seanchus Mor was sometimes called _Cain Phadruig_, or Patrick's Law.

[154] _Seanchus_.--From the old Celtic root _sen_, old, which has direct cognates, not merely in the Indo-European, but also in the Semitic; Arabic, _sen_, old, ancient--_sunnah_, inst.i.tution, regulation; Persian, _san_, law, right; _sanna_, Phoenicibus idem fuit quod Arabibus _summa_, lex, doctrina jux canonic.u.m.--Bochart, _Geo. Sae_. 1. ii. c. 17. See Petrie's _Tara_, p. 79.

[155] _Day_.--O'Curry, page 201.

[156] _Works_.--He appears to have been the author of the original Book of Rights, and ”commenced and composed the Psalter of Caiseal, in which are described the acts, _laws,”_ &c.--See Preface to Seanchus Mor, p.

17.

[157] _Arrears_.--Elphinstone's _India_, vol. i. p. 372.

[158] _Forbidden_.--”You shall not take money of him that is guilty of blood, but he shall die forthwith.”--Numbers, x.x.xv. 31.

[159] _Proved_.--See Pictet's _Origines Indo-Europeennes_. He mentions his surprise at finding a genuine Sanscrit word in Irish, which, like a geological boulder, had been transported from one extremity of the Aryan world to the other. Pictet considers that the first wave of Aryan emigration occurred 3,000 years before the Christian Era.

[160] _Writing_.--”Finally, Dudley Firbisse, hereditary professor of the antiquities of his country, mentions in a letter [to me] a fact collected from the monuments of his ancestors, that one hundred and eighty tracts [tractatus] of the doctrine of the druids or magi, were condemned to the flames in the time of St. Patrick.”--_Ogygia_, iii. 30, p. 219. A writer in the _Ulster Arch. Journal_ mentions a ”Cosmography,”

printed at ”Lipsiae, 1854.” It appears to be a Latin version or epitome of a Greek work. The writer of this Cosmography was born in 103. He mentions having ”examined the volumes” of the Irish, whom he visited. If this authority is reliable, it would at once settle the question.--See _Ulster Arch. Journal_, vol. ii. p. 281.

[161] _Hand_.--A work on this subject has long been promised by Dr.

Graves, and is anxiously expected by paleographists. We regret to learn that there is no immediate prospect of its publication.

[162] _Quipus_.--Quipus signifies a knot. The cords were of different colours. Yellow denoted gold and all the allied ideas; white, silver, or peace; red, war, or soldiers. Each quipus was in the care of a quiper-carnayoe, or keeper. Acorta mentions that he saw a woman with a handful of these strings, which she said contained a confession of her life. See Wilson's _Pre-Historic Man_ for most interesting details on the subject of symbolic characters and early writing.

[163] _Care_.--Annals of Boyle, vol. ii. p. 22. _Essay_, p. 82.

[164] _Peoples_.--See _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, vol. ii. p.

314, where the writer describes tombs sunk beneath a tumulus, about twenty-five or thirty feet in diameter, and also tombs exactly resembling the Irish cromlech, the covering slab of enormous size, being inclined ”apparently to carry off the rain.” In his account of the geographical sites of these remains, he precisely, though most unconsciously, marks out the line of route which has been a.s.signed by Irish annalists as that which led our early colonizers to Ireland. He says they are found in the presidency of Madras, among the mountains of the Caucasus, on the steppes of Tartary, in northern Africa, ”_on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean they are particularly abundant_,” and in Spain.

[165] _Sh.e.l.ls_.--Cat. Ant. R.I.A.; Stone Mat. p. 180. The ethnographic phases of conchology might form a study in itself. Sh.e.l.ls appear to be the earliest form of ornament in use. The North American Indians have their sh.e.l.l necklaces buried with them also. See Wilson's _Pre-Historic Man_.

[166] _Child_.--Mr. Wilson gives a most interesting description of an interment of a mother and child in an ancient Peruvian grave. The mother had an unfinished piece of weaving beside her, with its colours still bright. The infant was tenderly wrapped in soft black woollen cloth, to which was fastened a pair of little sandals, 2-1/2 inches long; around its neck was a green cord, attached to a small sh.e.l.l.--_Pre-Historic Man_, vol. i. p. 234.