Myths & Legends of the Celtic RaceRolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race
Rolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Celts -- Religion; Mythology, Celtic
Magic was not—so Pliny believed—indigenous either in Greece or in Italy,
but was so much at home in Britain and conducted with such elaborate
ritual that Pliny says it would almost seem as if it was they who had
taught it to the Persians, not the Persians to them.
*Traces of Magic in Megalithic Monuments*
The imposing relics of their cult which the Megalithic People have left us
are full of indications of their religion. Take, for instance, the
remarkable tumulus of Mané-er-H’oeck, in Brittany. This monument was
explored in 1864 by M. René Galles, who describes it as absolutely
intact—the surface of the earth unbroken, and everything as the builders
left it.(38) At the entrance to the rectangular chamber was a sculptured
slab, on which was graven a mysterious sign, perhaps the totem of a chief.
Immediately on entering the chamber was found a beautiful pendant in green
jasper about the size of an egg. On the floor in the centre of the chamber
was a most singular arrangement, consisting of a large ring of jadite,
slightly oval in shape, with a magnificent axe-head, also of jadite, its
point resting on the ring. The axe was a well-known symbol of power or
godhead, and is frequently found in rock-carvings of the Bronze Age, as
well as in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Minoan carvings, &c. At a little distance
from these there lay two large pendants of jasper, then an axe-head in
white jade,(39) then another jasper pendant. All these objects were ranged
with evident intention _en suite_, forming a straight line which coincided
exactly with one of the diagonals of the chamber, running from north-west
to south-east. In one of the corners of the chamber were found 101
axe-heads in jade, jadite, and fibrolite. There were no traces of bones or
cinders, no funerary urn; the structure was a cenotaph. “Are we not here,”
asks Bertrand, “in presence of some ceremony relating to the practices of
magic?”
*Chiromancy at Gavr’inis*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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