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Did geisas (geasa), or "prohibitions," depend primarily on the circumstances of birth or the naming of a name? If we accept this rather weak translation, since it was very often a question of a complex set of prohibitions and obligations that the druids imposed and changed at their discretion. This is quite possible to assume. So, Cuchulainn all his life observes the "taboo" of the dog, and the "taboo" of two signs, by which he knows that his death is near, will be eating dog meat [261 - "Livre de Leinster", 120a, 20-24.] Or killing an otter, the "water dog" (Doborchu). [262 - Version B of The Death of Cuchulainn, ed. Van Hamel, p. 110-111.]
Cormac, the son of King Conchobar, must not hear the harp of Krayftina, the harpist of the druid god Dagda, and also has no right either to hunt birds, Magician Da Heo, not to travel on a cart with an ash yoke, not to cross the dry land of Shannon, not to stop at an inn courtyard of Da Hawk. And the story of his death is nothing more than the story of the successive violations of these gays. [263 - “Rev. celt. ", 21, 149, 312, 388.]
The prohibitions imposed on King Conair are stricter and seem even stranger in "Destruction of the House da Derg" lists the following prohibitions: when returning home, he should never turn the right side of his carriage towards Tara, and the left side towards Brega; he cannot hunt the beasts of Kerna; he has no right to leave Tara every ninth night; also, he should not spend nights in a house where the fire shines outside after sunset and is visible outside; he should not follow the "three red men" when he goes to the house of the man "dressed in red"; no theft should be committed in his kingdom; after sunset, neither woman nor man should visit him alone, and he has no right to interfere in a quarrel between his two servants. [264 - "Version du" Livre Jaune de Lecan ", ed. Eleanor Knott, 6, § 16.] All this was difficult to observe exactly, and sometimes even to combine one with the other.
These geisses should probably be attributed to the number of means that the druids used to subordinate the life of the military class to certain rules, which were expressed in a number of religious symbols and were in the nature of strict prescriptions. In fact, a geis (geis) had the force of a law, both secular and religious: it was only necessary to neglect it, and this immediately entailed a whole series of complications.
King Conchobar, having assumed the royal obligation to observe and, consequently, to fulfill the right of the first wedding night (jus primae noctis), was forced to resort to the help of an official decision, not wanting to really subject Cú Chulainn's wife Emer to this "formal procedure" threatening her husband's terrible anger: “Then they began to decide what to do with them. And on what they agreed: Emer must spend the first night with Conchobar, but Fergus and Cathbad will be with them to protect Cuchulainn's honor.”[265 -“La Courtise d'Emer,”ed. Van Hamel, 65, § 90.]
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Celtic Druids. Book by Françoise Leroux.
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