Ancient Man in Britain

CHAPTER XVI

Ancient Pagan Deities

Deities as Birds—Triads of Gaelic Goddesses—Shape-shifting Goddesses—Black Annis of Leicestershire—The Scottish Black Annis—Black Kali and Black Demeter—Cat Goddess and Witches—A Scottish Artemis—Celtic Adonis Myth—The Cup of Healing—Myths of Gaelic Calendar—Irish and Scottish Mythologies Different—Scottish Pork Taboo—Eel tabooed in Scotland but not in England—Ancient English Food Taboos—Irish Danann Deities—Ancient Deities of England and Wales—The Apple Cult—English Wassailling Custom—The Magic Cauldron—The Holy Grail—Cauldron a Goddess Symbol—Pearls and Cows of the Cauldron—Goddess—Romano-British Deities—Grouped Goddesses—The Star Goddess—Sky and Sea Spirits.

Many of the old British and Irish deities had bird forms, and might appear as doves, swallows, swans, cranes, cormorants, scald crows, ravens, &c. The cormorant, for instance, is still in some districts called the Cailleach dubh ("the black old wife"). Some deities, like Brigit and Morrigan, had triple forms, and appeared as three old hags or as three beautiful girls, or assumed the forms of women known to those they visited. In the Cuchullin stories the Morrigan appears with a supernatural cow, the milk of which heals wounds and prolongs life. When in conflict with Cuchullin, she takes alternately the forms of an eel, a grey wolf, and a white cow with red ears. On one occasion she changes from human form to that of a dark bird. An old west of England goddess was remembered until recently in Leicestershire as "Black Annis", "Black Anny", or "Cat Anna". She frequented a cave on the Dane Hills,182 above which grew an oak tree. In the branches of the tree she concealed herself, so that she might pounce unawares on human beings. Shepherds attributed to her the loss of lambs, and mothers their loss of children. The supernatural monster had one eye in her blue face, and talons instead of hands. Round her waist she wore a girdle of human skins.

A Scottish deity called "Yellow Muilearteach" was similarly one-eyed and blue-faced, and had tusks protruding from her mouth. An apple dangled from her waist girdle. The Indian goddess Black Kali is depicted as a ferocious being of like character, with a forehead eye, in addition to ordinary eyes, and a waist girdle of human heads. Greece had its Black Demeter with animal-head (a horse's or pig's), and snakes in her hair. She haunted a cave in Phigalia. The Egyptian goddess Hathor in her cat form (Bast) was kindly, and in her Sekhet form was a fierce slayer of mankind.183

Witches assume cat forms in Scottish witch lore,184 and appear on the riggings and masts of ships doomed to destruction. There are references, too, to cat roasting, so as to compel the "Big Cat" to appear. The "Big Cat" is evidently the deity. In northern India dogs are tortured to compel the "Big Dog" (the god Indra) to send rain. "Lapus Cati" (the cat stone) is referred to in early Christian records. As a mouse was buried under an apple tree to make it fruitful, a cat was buried under a pear tree.

The Scottish "Yellow Muilearteach" revels in the slaughter of human beings, and folk poems, describing a battle waged against her, have been collected. In the end she is slain, and her consort comes from the sea to lament her death. A similar hag is remembered as the Cailleach ("the old wife"). She had a "blue-black face" and one eye "on the flat of her forehead", and she carried a magic hammer. During the period of "the little sun" (the winter season) she held sway over the world. Her blanket was washed in the whirlpool of Corryvreckan, which kept boiling vigorously for several days. Ben Nevis was her chief dwelling-place, and in a cave in that mountain she kept as a prisoner all winter a beautiful maiden who was given the task of washing a brown fleece until it became white. When wandering among the mountains or along the sea-shore she is followed, like Artemis, by herds of deer, goats, swine, &c. The venomous black boar is in some of the stories under her special protection. Apparently this animal was her symbol as it was that of the Baltic amber traders. The hero who hunts and slays the boar is himself killed by it, as was the Syrian god Adonis by the boar form of Ares (Mars). In Gaul the boar-god Moccus was identified by the Romans with Mars.

In Gaelic stories the hero who hunts and slays the boar is remembered as Diarmid, the eponymous ancestor of the Campbell clan. Apparently the goddess was the ugly hag to whom he once gave shelter. She transformed herself into a beautiful maiden who touched his forehead and left on it a "love spot".185

When she vanished he followed her to the "Land-Under-Waves". There he finds her as a beautiful girl who is suffering from a wasting disease. To cure her he goes on a long journey to obtain a draught of water from a healing well. This water he carries in the "Cup of Healing".

The winter hag has a son who falls in love with the beautiful maiden of Ben Nevis. When he elopes with her, his mother raises storms in the early spring season to keep the couple apart and prevent the grass growing. These storms are named in the Gaelic Calendar as "the Pecker", "the Whistle", "the Sweeper", "the Complaint", &c. In the end her son pursues her on horseback, until she transforms herself into a moist grey stone "looking over the sea". The story tells that the son's horse leapt over arms of the sea. On Loch Etiveside a place-name "Horseshoes" is attached to marks on a rock supposed to have been caused by his great steed. In the Isle of Man the place of the giant son is taken by St. Patrick. He rides from Ireland on horseback like the ancient sea god. He cursed a monster, which was turned into solid rock. St. Patrick's steed left the marks of its hoofs on the cliffs.186

In Arthurian romance King Arthur pursues Morgan le Fay, who likewise transforms herself into a stone. A Welsh folk story tells that Arthur's steed leapt across the Bristol Channel, and left the marks of its hoofs on a rock.

It appears that Morgan le Fay is the same deity as the Irish Morrigan. Both appear to link with Anu, or Danu, the Irish mother goddess, and with Black Anna or Annis of Leicestershire. The Irish Danann deities wage war against the Fomorians, who are referred to in one instance as the gods of the Fir Domnann (Dumnonii), the mineral workers or "diggers" of Cornwall and Devon, of the south-western and central lowlands of Scotland, and central and south-western Ireland. In Scotland the Fomorians are numerous; they are hill and cave giants like the giants of Cornwall. But there are no Scottish Dananns and no "war of the gods". The Fomorians of Scotland wage war against the fairies (as in Wester Ross) or engage in duels, throwing great boulders at one another.

The intruding people who in Ireland formulated the Danann mythology do not appear to have reached Scotland before the Christian period.

An outstanding difference between Scottish and Irish beliefs and practices is brought out by the treatment of the pig in both countries. Like the Continental Celts, the Irish Celts, who formed a military aristocracy over the Firbolgs, the Fir Domnann, and the Fir Gailian (Gauls), kept pigs and ate pork. In Scotland the pig was a demon as in ancient Egypt, and pork was tabooed over wide areas. The prejudice against pork in Scotland is not yet extinct. It is referred to by Sir Walter Scott in a footnote in The Fortunes of Nigel, which states:

"The Scots (Lowlanders), till within the last generation, disliked swine's flesh as an article of food as much as the Highlanders do at present. Ben Jonson, in drawing James's character,187 says he loved no part of a swine."188

Dr. Johnson wrote in his A Journey to the Western Highlands in 1773:

"Of their eels I can give no account, having never tasted them, for I believe they are not considered as wholesome food.... The vulgar inhabitants of Skye, I know not whether of the other islands, have not only eels, but pork and bacon in abhorrence; and, accordingly, I never saw a hog in the Hebrides, except one at Dunvegan."

"In the year 1691 a question was put, 'Why do Scotchmen hate swine's flesh?' and", says J. G. Dalyell,189 "unsatisfactorily answered, 'They might borrow it of the Jews'." As the early Christians of England and Ireland did not abhor pork, the prejudice could not have been of Christian origin. It was based on superstition, and as the superstitions of to-day were the religious beliefs of yesterday, the prejudice appears to be a survival from pagan times. An ancient religious cult, which may have originally been small, became influential in Scotland, and the taboo spread even after its original significance was forgotten. The Scottish prejudice against pork existed chiefly among "the common people", as Dr. Johnson found when in Skye. Proprietors of alien origin and monks ate pork, but the old taboo persisted. Pig-dealers, &c., in the Highlands in the nineteenth century refused to eat pork. They exported their pigs.190

Traces of ancient food taboos, which were connected evidently with religious beliefs, have been obtained by archæologists in England. In some districts pork appears to have been more favoured than the beef or mutton or goat flesh preferred in other districts. Evidence has been forthcoming that horse flesh was eaten in ancient England. A reference in the Life of St. Columba to a relapsing Christian returning to horse flesh suggests that it was a favoured food of a Pagan cult.

As the devil is called in Scottish Gaelic the "Big Black Pig" and in Wales is associated with the "Black Sow of All Hallows", it may be that the Welsh had once their pig taboo too. The association of the pig with Hallowe'en is of special interest.

In Scotland the eel is still tabooed, although it is eaten freely in England. The reason may be that an ancient goddess, remembered longest in Scotland, had an eel form. Julius Cæsar tells that the ancient Britons with whom he came into contact did not regard it lawful to eat the hare, the domestic fowl, or the goose. In Scotland and England the goose was, until recently, eaten only once a year at a festival. The tabooed pig was eaten once a year in Egypt. It was sacrificed to Osiris and the moon. An annual sacrificial pig feast may have been observed in ancient Scotland. It is of special interest to find in this connection that in the Statistical Account of Scotland (1793) the writer on the parishes of Sandwick and Stromness, Orkney, says: "Every family that has a herd of swine, kills a sow on the 17th day of December, and thence it is called 'Sow-day'." Orkney retains the name of the Orcs (Boars), a Pictish tribe.

There are still people in the Highlands who detest "feathered flesh" or "white flesh" (birds), and refuse to eat hare and rabbit. Fish taboos have likewise persisted in the north of Scotland, where mackerel, ling,191 and skate are disliked in some areas, while in some even the wholesome haddock is not eaten in the winter or spring, and is supposed not to be fit for food until it gets three drinks of May water—that is, after the first three May tides have ebbed and flowed.

The Danann deities of Ireland were the children of descendants of the goddess Danu, whose name is also given as Ana or Anu. She was the source of abundance and the nourisher of gods and men. As "Buanann" she was "nurse of heroes". As Aynia, a "fairy"192 queen, she is still remembered in Ulster, while as Aine, a Munster "fairy", she was formerly honoured on St. John's Eve, when villagers, circulating a mound, carried straw torches which were afterwards waved over cattle and crops to give protection and increase.

A prominent Danann god was Dagda, whose name is translated as "the good god", "the good hand", by some, and as "the fire god" or "fire of god" by others. He appears to have been associated with the oak. By playing his harp, he caused the seasons to follow one another in their proper order. One of his special possessions was a cauldron called "The Undry", from which an inexhaustible food supply could be obtained. He fed heavily on porridge, and was a cook (supplier of food) as well as a king. In some respects he resembles Thor, and, like him, he was a giant slayer. His wife was the goddess Boann, whose name clings to the River Boyne, which was supposed to have had its origin from an overflowing well. Above this well were nine hazel trees; the red nuts of these fell into the well to be devoured by salmon and especially by the "salmon of knowledge". Here again we meet with the tree and well myth. Brigit was a member of the Dagda's family. Another was Angus, the god of love.

Diancecht was the Danann god of healing. His grandson Lugh (pronounced loo) has been called the "Gaelic Apollo". Goibniu was a Gaelic Vulcan.

Neit, whose wife was Nemon,193 was a Fomorian god of battle. The sea god was Manannán mac Lir. He was known to the Welsh as Manawydan ab Llyr, who was not only a sea god but "lord of headlands" and a patron of traders. Llyr has come down as the legendary King Lear, and his name survives in Leicester, originally Llyr-cestre of Cær-Llyr (walled city of Llyr). His famous and gigantic son Bran became, in the process of time, the "Blessed Bran" who introduced Christianity into Britain.

Another group of Welsh gods, known as "the children of Don", resemble somewhat the Danann deities of Ireland. The closest link is Govannon, the smith, who appears to be identical with the Irish Goibniu. As Irish pirates invaded and settled in Wales between the second and fifth centuries of our era, it may be that the process of "culture mixing" which resulted can be traced in the mythological elements embedded in folk and manuscript stories. The Welsh deities, however, were connected with certain constellations and may have been "intruders" from the Continent. Cassiopea's chair was Llys Don (the court of the goddess Don). Arianrod (silver circle), a goddess and wife of Govannon, had for her castle the Northern Crown (Corona Borealis). She is, in Arthurian romance, the sister of Arthur. Her brother Gwydion had for his castle the "Milky Way", which in Irish Gaelic is "the chain of Lugh". The Irish Danann god Nuada has been identified with the British Nudd whose children formed the group of "the children of Nudd".

There were three groups of Welsh deities, the others being "the children of Lyr" and "the children of Don". Professor Rhys has identified Nudd with Lud, the god whose name survives in London (originally Cær Lud) and in Ludgate, which may, as has been suggested, have originally been "the way of Lud", leading to his holy place now occupied by St. Paul's Cathedral. Lud had a sanctuary at Lidney in Gloucestershire, where he was worshipped in Roman times as is indicated by inscriptions. A bronze plaque shows a youthful god, with solar rays round his head, standing in a four-horsed chariot. Two winged genii and two Tritons accompany him. Apparently he was identified with Apollo. The Arthurian Lot or Loth was Lud or Ludd. His name lingers in "Lothian".

Gwydion, the son of Don, was a prominent British deity and has been compared to Odin. He was the father of the god Lleu, whose mother was Arianrod. The rainbow was "Lleu's rod-sling". Dwynwen, the so-called British Venus, was Christianized as "the blessed Dwyn" and the patron saint of the church of Llanddwyn in Anglesey. The magic cauldron was possessed by the Welsh goddess Kerridwen.

BRONZE URN AND CAULDRON (circa 500 b.c.)

(British Museum)

Vessels such as these are unknown outside the British Isles.

A prominent god whose worship appears to have been widespread was connected with the apple tree, which in the Underworld and Islands of the Blest was the "Tree of Life". Ancient beliefs and ceremonies connected with the apple cult survive in those districts in southern England where the curious custom is observed of "wassailing" the apple trees on Christmas Eve or Twelfth Night.194 The "wassailers" visit the tree and sing a song in which each apple is asked to bear

Cider is poured about the roots of apple trees. This ceremony appears to have been originally an elaborate one. The tom-tit or some other small bird was connected with the apple tree, as was the robin or wren of other cults with the oak tree. At the wassailing ceremony a boy climbed up into a tree and impersonated the bird. It may be that in Pagan times a boy was sacrificed to the god of the tree. That the bird (in some cases it was the robin red-breast) was hunted and sacrificed is indicated by old English folk-songs beginning like the following:

In England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland a deity, or a group of deities in the Underworld, was associated with a magic cauldron, or as it is called in Gaelic a "pot of plenty". Heroes or gods obtain possession of this cauldron, which provides an inexhaustible food supply and much treasure, or is used for purposes of divination. It appears to have been Christianized into the "Holy Grail", to obtain possession of which Arthurian knights set out on perilous journeys.

Originally the pot was a symbol of the mother goddess, who renewed youth, provided food for all, and was the source of treasure, luck, victory, and wisdom. This goddess was associated with the mother cow and the life-prolonging pearls that were searched for by early Eastern prospectors. There are references to cows and pearls in Welsh and Gaelic poems and legends regarding the pot. An old Welsh poem in the Book of Taliesin says of the cauldron:

This extract is from the poem known as "Preidden Annwfn" ("Harryings of Hades"), translated by the late Professor Sir John Rhys. Arthur and his heroes visit Hades to obtain the cauldron, and reference is made to the "Speckled Ox". Arthur, in another story, obtains the cauldron from Ireland. It is full of money. The Welsh god Bran gives to a king of Ireland a magic cauldron which restores to life those dead men who are placed in it. A Gaelic narrative relates the story of Cuchullin's harrying of Hades, which is called "Dun Scaith". Cuchullin's assailants issue from a pit in the centre of Dun Scaith in forms of serpents, toads, and sharp-beaked monsters. He wins the victory and carries away three magic cows and a cauldron that gives inexhaustible supplies of food, gold, and silver.

The pot figures in various mythologies. It was a symbol of the mother goddess Hathor of ancient Egypt and of the mother goddess of Troy, and it figures in Indian religious literature. In Gaelic lore the knife which cuts inexhaustible supplies of flesh from a dry bone is evidently another symbol of the deity.

The talismans possessed by the Dananns were the cauldron, the sword and spear of Lugh, and the Lia Fail (or Stone of Destiny)195, which reminds one of the three Japanese symbols, the solar mirror, the dragon sword, and the tama (a pearl or round stone) kept in a Shinto shrine at Ise. The goddess's "life substance" was likewise in fruits like the Celestial apples, nuts, rowan berries, &c., of the Celts, and the grapes, pomegranates, &c., of other peoples, and in herbs like the mugwort and mandrake. Her animals were associated with rivers. The name of the River Boyne signifies "white cow". Tarf (bull) appears in several river names, as also does the goddess name Deva (Devona) in the Devon, Dee, &c. Philologists have shown that Ness, the Inverness-shire river, is identical with Nestos in Thrace and Neda in Greece. The goddess Belisama (the goddess of war) was identified with the Mersey.

Goddess groups, usually triads, were as common in Gaul as they were in ancient Crete. These deities were sometimes called the "Mothers", as in Marne, the famous French river, and in the Welsh Y Mamau, one of the names of the "fairies".

Other names of goddess groups include Proximæ (kinswoman), Niskai (water spirits), and Dervonnæ (oak spirits). The Romans took over these and other groups of ancient deities and the beliefs about their origin in the mythical sea they were supposed to cross or rise from. Gaelic references to "the coracle of the fairy woman" or "supernatural woman" are of special interest in this connection, especially when it is found that the "coracle" is a sea-shell which, by the way, figures as a canopy symbol in some of the sculptured groups of Romano-British grouped goddesses who sometimes bear baskets of apples, sheafs of grain, &c. When the shell provides inexhaustible supplies of curative or knowledge-conferring milk, it links with the symbolic pot.

Most of the ancient deities had local names, and consequently a number of Gaulish gods were identified by the Romans with Apollo, including Borvo, whose name lingers in Bourbon, Grannos of Aquæ Granni (Aix la Chapelle), Mogounus, whose name has been shortened to Mainz, &c. The gods Taranucus (thunderer), Uxellĭmus (the highest), &c., were identified with Jupiter; Dunatis (fort god), Albiorix (world king), Caturix (battle king), Belatucadros (brilliant in war), Cocidius, &c., were identified with Mars. The name of the god Camŭlos clings to Colchester (Camulodunun). There are Romano-British inscriptions that refer to the ancient gods under various Celtic names. A popular deity was the god of Silvanus, who conferred health and was, no doubt, identified with a tree or herb.

It is uncertain at what period beliefs connected with stars were introduced into the British Isles.196 As we have seen, the Welsh deities were connected with certain star groups. "Three Celtic goddesses", writes Anwyl, referring to Gaul, "whose worship attained to highest development were Damona (the goddess of cattle), Sirona (the aged one or the star goddess), and Epŏna (the goddess of horses). These names are Indo-European." An Irish poem by a bard who is supposed to have lived in the ninth century refers to the Christian saint Ciaran of Saigir as a man of stellar origin:

In the north and north-west Highlands the aurora borealis is called Na Fir Chlis ("the nimble men") and "the merry dancers". They are regarded as fairies (supernatural beings) like the sea "fairies" Na Fir Ghorm ("blue men"), who were probably sea gods.

The religious beliefs of the Romans were on no higher a level than those of the ancient Britons and Gaels.

CHAPTER XVII

Historical Summary

The evidence dealt with in the foregoing chapters throws considerable light on the history of early man in Britain. We really know more about pre-Roman times than about that obscure period of Anglo-Saxon invasion and settlement which followed on the withdrawal of the Roman army of occupation, yet historians, as a rule, regard it as "pre-historic" and outside their sphere of interest. As there are no inscriptions and no documents to render articulate the archæological Ages of Stone and Bronze, they find it impossible to draw any definite conclusions.