at Samhain that a later race of gods of light and life finally conquered those demons at the Battle of Moytura. All travel by the Celtic Shaman is along the spiral path or labyrinth which is the central axis between Earth (our realm) and the Upperworld and Underworld. hoodie-crow which so often molested them. I and II. Things may still be done for "luck" which were once done for religion. 92-93.
Set up your altar with your supplies however you see fit for summertime, then invoke the four elements (earth, air, fire, water) and the Sun God and Mother Nature. [paragraph continues] Patrick in Ireland. 3 It is needless to multiply instances of a still surviving cult of water, trees, stones, and animals. I had a bonfire at my place and my friends came over to celebrate with me. The characteristic features of these festivals give certain proof of the original nature of the great pagan ceremonials of which they are the survivals and travesties.
We shall get, therefore, more satisfactory evidence of the nature of the Celtic paganism by examining such customs than in any other way. Sometimes, where the ground near the well was bare of vegetation, bushes were artificially placed beside the water. The Gods and Goddesses of the Irish were/are a little different from others in Celtic Mythology from Britain and Europe, and it is important to differentiate and understand what we mean by Irish Gods, specifically.
In Wales, upon the last day of October. With sacred wells were often connected sacred trees, to whose branches rags and small pieces of garments were suspended by their humble votaries.
"I shall not", he says, "enumerate those diabolical idols of my country, which almost surpassed in number those of Egypt, and of which we still see some mouldering away within or without the deserted temples, with stiff and deformed features as was customary. It would be hard, perhaps, to find a whole-hearted believer even in his local pooka or parish bogle. Instead of this law Celtic Pagans follow a Values System. The first is the celebration of the old solar or agricultural festivals of the spring and autumn equinoxes and of the summer and winter solstices. This homoeopathic device of using the evil power's own sacred fire as a means of protection against himself somewhat suggests that seething of the kid in its mother's milk which was reprobated. The family of the O’Herlebys in Ballyvorney, County Cork, used in olden days to keep an idol, "an image of wood about two feet high, carved and painted like a woman". My ancestors came from Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, and to the ancient Celts the cycle of the seasons was sacred. But before the Romans left Britain, it had been extirpated everywhere, except among "the Picts and Scots". The description of the Tuatha Dé Danann in the "Dialogue of the Elders" as "sprites or fairies with corporeal or material forms but indued with immortality" would stand as an account of prevailing ideas as to the "good people" to-day. The bonfires which fill so large a part in the modern festivals have been casually mentioned. Like the other "Aryan" nations, the Celts worshipped their rivers. But, as the power of Moses was greater than the power of the magicians of Egypt, so Saint Columba's prayers caused miracles more wonderful and more convincing than any wrought by his adversaries.
Everything about life during the time of my Celtic ancestors revolved around nature. 403:2 Charles Godfrey Leland: Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition.
CHAPTER XXV SURVIVALS OF THE CELTIC PAGANISM INTO MODERN TIMES . It was not against the god, but against his worship at the hands of his priests, that Roman law struck. The modern Greeks still believe in nereids, in lamias, in sirens, and in Charon, the dark ferryman of Hades. fall from their shrines, and yet, rising again, take on new lives as kings, or saints, or knights of romance, and we have caught fading glimpses of them surviving to-day as the "fairies", their rites still cherished by worshippers who hardly know who or why they worship. Before he came, Cromm Cruaich had received from time immemorial his yearly toll of human lives.