Recurring to the affinity of Ireland with ancient Persia (Iran), the history of the latter country is traced from its settlement by the _Aryans_. According to tradition preserved in the collection of sacred books known as the _Zendavesta_, the original seat of that people was the _Eriene-Veedjo_, a district situated in the north-western highlands of Asia, of great fertility, and enjoying a singularly mild climate, having seven months of summer and five of winter. Then “the death-dealing Ahriman smote it with the plague of cold, so that it came to have ten months of winter and only two of summer”; and was in consequence deserted by its inhabitants, who gradually overspread the low-lying countries, as far south as the Indus, including _Fars_, as Persia was then termed. They were a vigorous and energetic race these Aryans, who soon became dominant in their new quarters, substituting the name of their own country (_Iran_, or the _sacred land_, formed from the ancient Zend _Eriene_) for that of Fars, and founding a dynasty, or rather succession of dynasties, which superseded the government formerly in existence. The mixture of races led to a certain diversity of language, and thus originated the Zend and _Pahlavi_ or Sanskrit dialects, which bear a remarkable affinity to Irish (cf. _Palaver_). There was further a diversity of religions, the old religion of _Hushang_, a predecessor of Zoroaster, being professed by many long after fire-worship became the dominant faith of Persia. CHAPTER XV (PP. 193-210) This ancient religion of Hushang, which was doubtless that of the Aryans, seems to have been of that _Sabaic_ order practised by the Chaldeans, which, as we have seen, recognised the heavenly bodies as the most imposing representatives of a divine power, and cannot therefore be fairly described as _idolatry_. It was idealistic, in so far as it regarded the different energies of nature simply as manifestations of a great creative power, whereas the idolatrous stage did not supervene until this purer faith degenerated into materialism. With this religion that of the ancient Irish harmonized. The dominance of sun and moon worship in the latter is shown by the way in which the various titles of these luminaries are interwoven with the language; most of the Irish local names, as well as the names of traditional festivals, consisting of variants of different epithets applied to the sun and moon, which the pagan Irish considered to be united in matrimony, just as the Egyptians did _Osiris_ and _Isis_, their equivalents. CHAPTER XVI (PP. 211-226)