But if the case be otherwise, then must we ascribe it to some _human_ instrumentality; and, as there occur various texts in Scripture, allusive, it would seem, to a very prevailing opinion in the _East_, as to the manageableness of that species, by the power of charms,--such as, “I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed” (Jer. viii. 17); and “the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely” (Ps. lvii. 4, 5);--and as our Tuath-de-danaans, who were an Eastern people, are recorded by all our early ecclesiastical writers, and with no view to encomium, as so eminent for incantations, that the island seemed, during their sway, to have been one continuation of enchantment, it is past doubt, that, if practicable by man’s efficacy at all, the merit of extinction belongs solely to them. And it is well worth notice, that the island of Crete, where a colony of them also had settled, is said to be gifted with a similar exemption. “The professed snake-catchers in India,” says Johnson, “are a low caste of Hindoos, wonderfully clever in catching snakes, as well as in practising the art of legerdemain; they pretend to draw them from their holes by a song, _and by an instrument resembling an Irish bagpipe, on which they play a plaintive tune_.”[415] Every _legend_, however, is founded upon _reality_, and I will unfold to you from what has Joceline concocted _this about St. Patrick_. All the _crosses_ of the Tuath-de-danaans had _snakes_ engraved upon them. Look back at that at Killcullen,[416] and you will see them there still, and more plainly, by and by, upon that at Kells. These to the Irish were objects of reverence, because of the _passions_ which they symbolised; and accordingly the Saint, in order to obviate the recurrence of such contemplations, effaced them, when practicable, from off the stones.[417] The same precisely was the course, but with a less hallowed intention, which the Moslems had pursued in the dissemination of their creed. “Whenever,” says Archer, “these figures were introduced, the fanatic Moslem had hammered away all those within his reach; and when this process was too slow for the work of demolition, another mode of obliteration was requisite. Whole compartments of sculpture were plastered over to hide the profane imagery! In clearing away the rubbish, to bring these beautiful remains to light, the engineer stumbled on a long frieze, part of which had had the destroying mallet passed over it; but this method of despatch was not active enough, and that portion which had escaped violence, had been plastered over with a composition of the colour of the stone.”[418]