Previous Part: The Druid Triads
As for the "islands in the north of the world," they are subject to the same relationship between the human and the divine, thanks to which the druids are involved in both. According to Eachtra an mhadra mhaoib [525 - Irish Texts Soc, X, 70.]), the island of the Druids is a dark island in which darkness reigns. Therefore, he is in the north, in the realm of the dead, in the other world.
The Greeks, who collected some information about these mysterious islands, forcibly transferred this myth into descriptive geography: “According to Demetrius, most of the islands surrounding Britain are deserted, they are located far from each other, and some of them are named after demons or heroes … Having set out on a voyage through these regions by order of the king, he landed to collect information on the nearest of these deserted islands; there were few inhabitants on it, but in the eyes of the British they are sacred, and this serves as their protection from any damage on their part; [526-Cp. text by Julius Solin, the author of the late (3rd century), but giving precise instructions: “The island of the Silurians is separated by a restless strait from the coast, which is in the possession of the Breton tribe of Dumnons. These people keep ancient customs, do not use money …, worship the gods and boast,both men and women, by their art of divination "(Zwicker," Fontes ", I, 90).] when he arrived, a great commotion arose in the air, accompanied by many heavenly signs; the winds blew with howling, and lightning flashed in many places; then, when the calm was again established, the islanders said that a darkening had come over some higher being. For - they added, - if they light a lamp, then no one will be annoyed with it, but if they extinguish it, it becomes the cause of suffering for many people; so great souls in their burning do good and never do evil, but if they often happen to die out, or perish, as they do today, they cause winds and hail; they also often poison the air with harmful vapors. There, - he adds, - on one of the islands lies the sleeping Kronos, who is guarded by Briareus, and the dream is the fetters invented forto keep him; around him are many demons - his servants and servants. " [527 - Plut, De defectu oraculorum, 18.]
Mythology plays its role here, and the whole story takes on the form of a fable, in no way inferior to the Odyssey. The Greeks and Latins did not seem to be too surprised by the relatively large number of sacred islands that mark the seas of the Celts from the Isle of Dume at the mouth of the Loire to the Isle of Seyne at Anglais or Mona. In fact, even if the islands described by Plutarch were not the Tuatha de Dannan Islands, each of these sacred sites is only a localized designation of one prototype, those very "islands in the north of the world" outside our ordinary space; just as the presence of the chained or sleeping Kronos, of which Demetrius speaks, takes the place where he resides beyond time, as it should be with the mythological islands.
It is to these islands that the dead go: “On the coast of the ocean that surrounds Brittany, there are fishermen - subjects of the Franks, but they do not pay tribute to them. During sleep, they hear a voice calling them at their house, and it seems to them that some kind of noise is arising at their door; they get up, see foreign ships full of passengers, board them and in one fell swoop reach Britain with one rudder, while only with great difficulty, sailing under full sails, make this trip in one day and in one night on their own ships. They drop off the unknown passengers they were carrying. They hear the voices of those who meet them, without seeing a single person - they call their names, their tribe, their relatives and agreed signs; they hear the passengers answering them. Then, in a single movement, they return to their country, noticingthat their ship has now got rid of the cargo of those they were carrying.”[528 - Tz'etz'es, Commentaire sur Hesiodem, summarized by Procopius, (De Bello Gothico, IV, 20).]
All this merges with the ancient tradition of stories about the Hyperborean Apollo, [529 - Diod, V, 21.] who visited his admirers every nineteen years when the stars completed their cycle of revolution. According to the same Diodorus, [530 - Diod, II, 47.] Hyperboreans lived opposite the country of the Celts on an island as big as Sicily. With such an assessment of its size, there is no choice - the island in question should have been Great Britain or Ireland. [531 - It has sometimes been suggested that the sanctuary at Stonehenge had a connection with the cult of Apollo Hyperboreans.]
From the Hesperides, as John Tsetz put it, “named because they are in western Britain,” to the Cassiterides, so often mentioned in Greco-Latin literature, there is a cluster of small islands that are difficult to navigate with precision. The definition - both geographically and mythologically - is always vague and location vague. Each author speaks of one island, and it is never the same thing; Avien means Ireland or an island located beyond the sea (post pelagia), where Saturn is worshiped; [532 - Zwicker, Fontes, I, 1.] Strabo [533 - Strabo, IV, 6.] speaks of an island close to Britain, where the cult of Demeter and Cora is sent; another text by Plutarch again speaks of the cult of Kronos on an island located on the western side, where the priests are in charge of the worship,changing every thirty years, when the planet returns to the sign of the bull … [534 - Plut. De facie in orbe lunae, 26.]
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Even if we do not consider the problem from the point of view of ethnography, as Timagen does, [535 - See present. ed. pp. 220-221.] it is obvious that the Greeks and Latins misinterpreted the information provided to them by the local Celts. Young people from noble families traveled to the north of Scotland, or perhaps even further, wishing to complete their education, receive the highest degree of initiation from reputable mentors. [536 - See above, already cited by us quote of Caesar (Caes, B. G, VI, 13) on page.] This was in reality, but in the narratives these places and these mentors were overgrown with mysterious and mythological features. Having retained in his presentation only the main idea, the very fact of teaching, Caesar to an extreme extent simplified and rationalized it, while the Greeks took everything fantastic at face value, so that, it seems, none of them, which is curious,it did not occur to me to compare these Celtic stories with mythology. Of the Blessed Islands of the most Greek tradition.
There can be no doubt about the main point: the Celtic islands are indeed "in the north of the world"; each of them, like every holiday in time, is a whole, complete world, a microcosm, and the god who either rules or dwells in them is a formidable character: Kronos in the Greek interpretation is the Gallic Dispater, the god of the dead, the father all the living. In Ireland, Dagda is also called Eohaid, "the father of all," and the club kills him with one end and revives him with the other [537 - Mesca Ulad, ed. Watson, 28.]
At the same time, Dagda is the druid god Ruad Rofhessa (Ruaidh Rofhessa - "Red of perfect science") [538 - The name "Eohaid" goes back to the combination "Ivo-catus", "fighting with a yew", this epithet of Dagda is very significant and does not contradict to his dignity as a druid god, see Eriu, V, 8, 16: “They (Tuatha de Dannan) had a god of druidism, the great Dagda, since he is the most divine.”] “My god is before all other gods …” says Mog Ruith.
Outside of time and space, the inhabitants of the "Land of Youth" lead a happy life free from worries and mistakes. They are not threatened by the "triad of disasters" that J. Dumézil studied [539 - Latomus, 14, 173 sqq.] And the end of the world. However, the Druids predicted a catastrophe that they could not or would not want to avert: “One day fire and water will triumph.” [540 - Strabo, IV, 4.] Will this be the end of the world or the end of a cycle? At the end of the "Battle of the Mag Tuired" (§ 167), the goddess of war prophesies: "I will not see the light that is dear to me.
Celtic Druids. Book by Françoise Leroux
