Ireland, Historic and PicturesqueJohnston, Charles
History
Ireland, Historic and Picturesque
Johnston, Charles
Ireland -- Description and travel; Ireland -- History
Some thirty miles to the west of Brugh, on the Boyne, a low range of
hills rises from the central plain, now bearing the name of Slieve na
Calliagh, the Witch's Hill. In the days of the great forest this was the
first large open space to the west coming from Brugh, and, like it, a
quiet and remote refuge among the woods. On the hillsides of Slieve na
Calliagh are other pyramids of stone, in all things like those of
Brugh, and with the same chambered sanctuaries, but of lesser size;
belonging, perhaps, to a later age, when the De Danaans were no longer
supreme in the land, but took their place beside newcome invaders. These
lesser shrines were also sacred places, doorways to the hidden world,
entrance-gates to the Land of the Ever Young. There also was beheld the
vision of the radiant departed; there also were fonts of baptism, basins
wrought of granite brought hither from the distant hills of Mourne or
Wicklow. As in all lands, these fonts were used in the consecration of
the new birth, from which man rises conscious of his immortality.
In harmony with this faith of theirs, our present tradition sees in the
De Danaans a still haunting impalpable presence, a race invisible yet
real, dwelling even now among our hills and valleys. When the life of
the visible world is hushed, they say, there is another life in the
hidden, where the Dagda Mor and Ogma and Lug and Angus still guard the
De Danaan hosts. The radiance of their nearness is all through the land,
like the radiance of the sun hidden behind storm-clouds, glimmering
through the veil.
[Illustration: White Rocks, Portrush]
In the chambers of those pyramid-shrines are still traces of the
material presence of the De Danaans; not only their baptismal fonts, but
more earthly things--ornaments, beads of glass and amber, and combs with
which they combed their golden locks. These amber beads, like so many
things in the De Danaan history, call us to far northern lands by the
Baltic, whence in all likelihood the De Danaans came; for in those
Baltic lands we find just such pyramid shrines as those at Brugh and on
the hillsides of Slieve na Calliagh, and their ornaments are the same,
and the fashion of their spear-heads and shields. The plan of the Danish
pyramid of Uby is like the pyramids of Newgrange and Nowth and Dowth by
the Boyne, and the carvings on King Gorm's stone by the Baltic are like
the carvings of stones in our own island. On the Baltic shores, too, of
most ancient date and belonging to forgotten times, are still found
fragments and even perfect hulls of just such long ships as were needed
for the Danaans' coming, like the ships they burnt along the reaches of
the Foyle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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