Previous Part: Immortality of the Soul and Druid Metempsychosis
If, as the ancient authors say or are encouraged to think, the privilege of metempsychosis should also be attributed to simple, real people, we could add to our research a very extensive "chapter of absurdities", while in order to clarify all the situations about which the texts narrate, it is enough to separate the “real” immortality of the soul from the “mythological” metempsychosis.
It is the belief in the immortality of the soul that explains why Fergus appears in full military gear during the spell (evo-katio) when asked to recite "The Abduction of the Bull from Kualnge." [487 - See now. ed. p. 183.] In it we find an explanation for the fact that the dead were buried with weapons, and sometimes together with cattle and servants. [488 - It would be rash to build a sociological or religious theory on the basis of the method of burial practiced by the Celts.] But in its form and direction, this belief was completely different from the dogmas proclaimed by Christianity, and it was on this basis that one of the Celtic kings refused to accept baptism: “Niel, my father, did not allow me to believe, and I want to be buried in the heights of Tara, like a warrior, in military equipment, since it is customary for pagans to be armed in the grave,with weapons at the ready, facing the enemy, until the very day of Erdathe, which for magicians (that is, druids) is the day of the Lord's judgment. " [489 - Stokes, Tripartite Life, II, 308.]
The pre-Christian notion of the day of Erdatha is difficult to define precisely, [490 - Until now, no one has proposed any acceptable interpretation of this word, and its etymology remains unknown.] However, during the burial, an identical ceremony can be observed: all his armor in the south, in front of the royal fortress of Loegaira in Tara, facing Leinster, as if he went to battle with its inhabitants, whose enemy he was during his lifetime. The Loegaira fortress was then the banquet hall of the supreme king, and for this reason he asked to be buried there. " [491 - Lebor na hvidre, 118b, 39-44.]
Celtic Druids. Book by Françoise Leroux
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