Celtic Mythology: History of Celts, Religion, Archeological Finds, Legends & Myths. T. W. Rolleston
Other stones had more musical virtues—the "conspicuous stone" of Elysium from which arose a hundred strains, and the melodious stone of Loch Láig. Such beliefs existed into Christian times. S. Columba's stone altar floated on the waves, and on it a leper had crossed in the wake of the saint's coracle to Erin. But the same stone was that on which, long before, the hero Fionn had slipped.1093
Connected with the cult of stones are magical observances at fixed rocks or boulders, regarded probably as the abode of a spirit. These observances are in origin pre-Celtic, but were practised by the Celts. Girls slide down a stone to obtain a lover, pregnant women to obtain an easy delivery, or contact with such stones causes barren women to have children or gives vitality to the feeble. A small offering is usually left on the stone.1094 Similar rites are practised at megalithic monuments, and here again the custom is obviously pre-Celtic in origin. In this case the spirits of the dead must have been expected to assist the purposes of the rites, or even to incarnate themselves in the children born as a result of barren women resorting to these stones.1095 Sometimes when the purpose of the stones has been forgotten and some other legendary origin attributed to them, the custom adapts itself to the legend. In Ireland many dolmens are known, not as places of sepulture, but as "Diarmaid and Grainne's beds"—the places where these eloping lovers slept. Hence they have powers of fruitfulness and are visited by women who desire children. The rite is thus one of sympathetic magic.
Holed dolmens or naturally pierced blocks are used for the magical cure of sickness both in Brittany and Cornwall, the patient being passed through the hole.1096 Similar rites are used with trees, a slit being often made in the trunk of a sapling, and a sickly child passed through it. The slit is then closed and bound, and if it joins together at the end of a certain time, this is a proof that the child will recover.1097 In these rites the spirit in stone or tree was supposed to assist the process of healing, or the disease was transferred to them, or, again, there was the idea of a new birth with consequent renewed life, the act imitating the process of birth. These rites are not confined to Celtic regions, but belong to that universal use of magic in which the Celts freely participated.
Since Christian writers firmly believed in the magical powers of the Druids, aided however by the devil, they taught that Christian saints had miraculously overcome them with their own weapons. S. Patrick dispelled snow-storms and darkness raised by Druids, or destroyed Druids who had brought down fire from heaven. Similar deeds are attributed to S. Columba and others.1098 The moral victory of the Cross was later regarded also as a magical victory. Hence also lives of Celtic saints are full of miracles which are simply a reproduction of Druidic magic—controlling the elements, healing, carrying live coals without hurt, causing confusion by their curses, producing invisibility or shape-shifting, making the ice-cold waters of a river hot by standing in them at their devotions, or walking unscathed through the fiercest storms.1099 They were soon regarded as more expert magicians than the Druids themselves. They may have laid claim to magical powers, or perhaps they used a natural shrewdness in such a way as to suggest magic. But all their power they ascribed to Christ. "Christ is my Druid"—the true miracle-worker, said S. Columba. Yet they were imbued with the superstitions of their own age. Thus S. Columba sent a white stone to King Brude at Inverness for the cure of his Druid Broichan, who drank the water poured over it, and was healed.1100 Soon similar virtues were ascribed to the relics of the saints themselves, and at a later time, when most Scotsmen ceased to believe in the saints, they thought that the ministers of the kirk had powers like those of pagan Druid and Catholic saint. Ministers were levitated, or shone with a celestial light, or had clairvoyant gifts, or, with dire results, cursed the ungodly or the benighted prelatist. They prophesied, used trance-utterance, and exercised gifts of healing. Angels ministered to them, as when Samuel Rutherford, having fallen into a well when a child, was pulled out by an angel.1101 The substratum of primitive belief survives all changes of creed, and the folk impartially attributed magical powers to pagan Druid, Celtic saints, old crones and witches, and Presbyterian ministers.
1041. IT i. 56; D'Arbois, v. 387.
1042. See, e.g., "The Death of Muirchertach," RC xxiii. 394.
1043. HN xxx. 4, 13.
1044. Zimmer, Gloss. Hibern. 183; Reeves, Adamnan, 260.
1045. Kennedy, 175; cf. IT i. 220.
1046. See RC xii. 52 f.; D'Arbois, v. 403-404; O'Curry, MS. Mat. 505; Kennedy, 75, 196, 258.
1047. D'Arbois, v. 277.
1048. Stokes, Three Middle Irish Homilies, 24; IT iii. 325.
1049. RC xii. 83; Miss Hull, 215; D'Arbois, v. 424; O'Curry, MC ii. 215.
1050. Keating, 341; O'Curry, MS. Mat. 271.
1051. RC xii. 81.
1052. Miss Hull, 240 f.
1053. Maury, 14.
1054. Sébillot, ii. 226 f., i. 101, ii. 225; Bérenger-Féraud, Superstitions et Survivances, iii. 169 f.; Stat. Account, viii. 52.
1055. Rev. des Trad. 1893, 613; Sébillot, ii. 224.
1056. Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 218 f.; Sébillot, i. 100, 109; RC ii. 484; Frazer, Golden Bough2, i. 67.
1057. D'Arbois, v. 387; IT i. 52; Dixon, Gairloch, 165; Carmichael, Carm. Gad. ii. 25.
1058. RC xvi. 152; Miss Hull, 243.
1059. D'Arbois, v. 133; IT ii. 373.
1060. Mela, iii. 6; RC xv. 471.