Chapter 32 would provide the work with a symmetrical conclusion. As
in the exordium the author represents Adamnán as the last in a series of holy men to whom analogous revelations had been vouchsafed, so in this peroration he declares the identity of the doctrine preached by Adamnán, respecting the world to come, with the teaching of other saints and fathers of the Church. In designing his work with this structural completeness, the author stands alone, so far as I am aware, until Dante comes on the scene.
The episode of Enoch and Elijah standing under the Tree of Life, surrounded by the bird-flocks, though well told, adds nothing to the form in which it appears in other Irish legends of the period. We have already given reasons for supposing that it is an excrescence upon the original design.
The reflections there made upon the sorrow experienced by the righteous on hearing of the sorrows of Doomsday,[185] remind us of a similar passage in Dante:
‘Se di là sempre ben per noi si dice, Di quà che dire e far per lor si puote, Da quei, ch’hanno al voler buona radice?’
_Purg._ xi. 31-33.
The rhapsodical description of Heaven, which concludes the work as it now stands, is likewise a matter of ‘common form.’ It may possibly be an amplification of several passages in the Revelation (_e.g._ xxi. 4, etc.), though we have seen that something of the kind existed, in a rudimentary form, in some of the _Echtra_, when describing the Sidhe of a Dé Danann chief. The curiously close parallel in the Avesta has been noted already.
This chapter, as before mentioned, does not form part of the version preserved in the Lebor Brec, and although that MS. is by far the more recent, it is quite possible that the scribe followed a version transcribed before the addition was made.[186]
6. LATER DEVELOPMENTS
The _Fis Adamnáin_ represents the culminating point to which the Vision of the Otherworld was brought by writers of the Irish school: henceforth the achievements of that school are principally apparent in the influence which they exercised upon the course which the legend took upon the Continent, and thus, indirectly, upon the development of European literature. Enough has been said in an earlier part of this work to show that abundant means existed for familiarising Continental students with any branch of letters to which the Irish schools might be addicted, and accordingly we now find the Irish legend of the Otherworld disseminating itself through the medium as well of works written upon Irish soil, as of the writings of Irish scholars in Continental foundations, and similar works composed by foreign authors more or less under Irish influences.
The first of these productions is the last of the great _Imrama_, and by far the most famous, though not the best from a literary point of view.[187] Not only did the legend of St. Brendan, of Clonfert, surnamed the Voyager (483-574), become one of the most widely diffused and most popular tales of the Middle Ages, but it even influenced, in some slight degree, the course of the world’s history, for its account of a land beyond the Atlantic fired the imagination, and directed the course, of Spanish and Portuguese navigators many centuries after its own date.[188]
At one period of his labours, St. Brendan appears to have been seized with that _taedium vitae_ which is apt, at times, to weigh with special force upon diligent workers for righteousness. In his case it asserted itself, characteristically, in that impulse which even now urges so many of his countrymen to follow his course across the Atlantic, but on a voyage whence there is no return, and to another world which seldom affords a vision of Paradise, at any rate. In this frame of mind he prayed for a land, ‘secret, hidden, secure, delightful, apart from men’; he then fell asleep, and, in a dream, was directed to repair to Sliabh Daidche (now Brandon Hill, in the Co. Kerry). This he did, and there met an angel, who bade him build three ships, and commit himself to the ocean. The building and manning of the ships, and the early stages of the voyage, wherein the old model of the _Imrama_ is closely followed, are interesting, but cannot be given here. One day the voyagers landed upon the back of a sleeping whale, taking it for an island, until the monster, awaking, bore them off across the sea.[189] Thus they journeyed for five years, being sustained the while by food miraculously sent to them, as to the island hermits of the earlier _Imrama_. At length St. Brendan espied the Devil approaching them across the waves.[190] He hailed the demon, and questioned him, who replied that he had come to seek his punishment ‘in the deep closes of the black, dark sea.’ This roused the Saint’s curiosity, but the Devil told him that none might see those things and live; he was prevailed on, however, to guide the Saint to the gate of Hell. Here Brendan saw ‘a rough, hot prison, full of stench and filth and flame,’ and ‘the camps of poisonous demons’; here were wailing and ‘handsmiting of the sinful folk;[191] and a gloomy, mournful life in cores of pain, in prisons of fire, in streams of the rows of eternal fire, in the cup of eternal sorrow and death’ (tr. W. S.). The land was full of black swamps, surrounding fiery forts, and fiery mountains, over which demons were dragging the souls of the lost, without respite. Then follow long and gruesome descriptions of the sufferings endured in that place; these are of the usual type, including all the horrors of a wild and desolate region, with inclement weather, combining the extremes of heat and cold; foul, poisonous lakes; fierce winds; wild, rough brakes, and mountains haunted by monsters, etc., etc. Proceeding on their way, they visited various islands; round one of them, very lofty, they cruised for twelve days, without finding a spot where they might land, though they saw a noble church in it, and heard voices praising the Lord. After visiting several islands, the Saint returned to Ireland.[192]
However, the spirit of wandering was not yet laid, and St. Brendan set forth upon a second voyage. In this, as on the first voyage, the Otherworld type of the lands which he visited is evident. In one ‘little, insignificant island,’ the harbour was ‘filled with devils in the shape of dwarfs and pygmies, with their faces as black as coal.’ At length Brendan came to an island whereon was a pilgrim covered with white hair, who directed him to the Tír Tairngire. Here he found an old man, who bade him enter into possession of the land, for those were ‘the plains of Paradise, and the delightful fields of the land, radiant, famous, loveable, profitable,’ etc. ‘A land of odorous flowers, smooth, bland. A land of many melodies, musical, shouts for joy, unmournful’ (tr. W. S.). There were ‘health without sickness, delight without quarrelling, union without wrangling, princedom without dissolution, rest without idleness, freedom without labour, luminous unity of angels, delights of Paradise, service of angels, feasting without extinction,’ and so on, in the rhapsodical style of ch. 35 of the _Fis Adamnáin_. The old man was covered with white hair, like a dove or sea-mew,[193] and had ‘almost the speech of an angel.’ At the stroke of a bell tierce was celebrated, when ‘they sing thanks to God, with their minds fixed on Him,’ a repetition of the words of the _Fis Adamnáin_; indeed, a long passage at the conclusion of the voyage coincides almost word for word with the _Fis_, of which, according to Mr. Whitley Stokes, it is a copy, and not _vice versa_.[194]
The Latin narratives of St. Brendan’s voyages[195] differ widely from the Irish account; on the whole, the Otherworld element is much less prominent in them, though they contain several details of the kind. Of such are the island standing on four pedestals, and an island with a tall column on it, from which a veil or canopy like silver hung; a volcanic isle with demon smiths at work, hammering upon their anvils the souls of the wicked, who threw masses of glowing metal after the ships; hermits fed with salmon by a cat, etc. There is also a variant of the story told in the Voyage of Maelduin about the Torach gravedigger.
The Paradise of Birds appears with a new significance. The birds are those angels who, upon the rebellion of Lucifer, _per sè foro_, and fell without active guilt on their part, and were relegated to this island, there to dwell until the general Resurrection, suffering no pain, and celebrating the canonical hours; a happier lot than that which Dante bestows upon them in canto iii. of the _Inferno_.
The story of Brendan, it will be seen, though somewhat later than the _Fis Adamnáin_, is but an _Imram_ of the ordinary type, though containing several original features, and richer in incident than most of its predecessors. However, its chief claim to consideration rests upon the work which it effected in securing for Irish legend a permanent place in European literature.
With the Voyage of Brendan the _Imram_ type of romance culminates, and ceases to occupy its former important place in Irish literature.[196] Henceforth, the Otherworld tradition, whether in Irish or foreign hands, is continued by means of the _Fis_, the form properly its own, from the time of Plato downwards.
In this form it inspired a work which almost rivalled the Voyage of Brendan in the popularity it achieved, and the influence it exercised upon later writers. This was the Vision of Tundale, written at Ratisbon by an Irish monk, a Munster man, named Marcus, apparently about the year 1149, in which the vision is dated. It was written in Latin, and immediately became widely popular, being translated in the course of its own century, and several centuries following, into the languages of most European countries, from Sweden to Spain and Italy.[197]
This Tundale, so-called--whose proper name Professor Kuno Meyer conjectures to be Tnúthgal or Tnúdgal (_op. cit._, p. 91)--was a knight of Cashel, said by the author to have been ‘noble of blood, but bloody of deeds; fair as to body, but careless about his soul. Fierce and terrible towards the Church, for he would endure none of the poor folk of the Lord in his sight.’ Once, when on a visit to a friend in Cork, he fell into a fit while sitting at table; he was taken up for dead, but was not buried, as a slight warmth was perceptible in his left side. He remained in a trance from the fourth hour on Wednesday until the same time on Saturday, when he recovered slowly, partook of the Sacrament, and gave thanks to God, after which he gave all his goods to the poor, assumed the cross, and ‘turned his back on his former life.’ It was during this trance that he beheld the vision which he related to Marcus.
Immediately after the departure of Tundale’s soul from his body, his conscience expressed great dread by reason of the magnitude of his sins. Fain to re-enter his body, he could not, but flitted unsteadily, swiftly, to and fro, weeping and weary, in fear and lamentation. Great hordes of demons surrounded him, who welcomed him, terming his soul ‘daughter of death and enemy of God, spouse of darkness and foe of light,’ etc. They tore his face with their talons, and taunted him with his sins. At length he saw a light, like a star, approaching; this was his guardian angel who bade him ‘welcome from God.’
Tundale, between fear and joy, replied, ‘A sorry case, my lord; the pains of Hell have surrounded me, and I am in the snare of death.’
The angel answered, ‘I have ever been with thee, yet never until now hast thou called upon me thus.’ Then, pointing to the ugliest of the demons, he added, ‘That is the deed and the counsel [devised] independently of me.’ However, he promised that Tundale should receive mercy, though he must suffer somewhat first. He then bade him follow, and retain firmly in his memory whatever he should see.
Upon seeing Tundale escape them, the demons began to blaspheme God, and to smite one another, and finally departed, leaving a foul smell behind.
For long Tundale journeyed on in darkness, lighted only by the radiant garments of his guide. At length they came to a glen ‘darkened with the mist of death,’ and filled with sparks of fire. An iron covering, six cubits thick, was on it, hotter than the sparks themselves, and a stench issued forth that was a more grievous torment than Tundale had ever known. A huge multitude of wretched souls were sitting on that lid, burning, ‘till they were melted, like garlic in a pan, with the glow thereof.’ Others were strained through the lid, like wax through a linen cloth, and then tempered in the sparks below for a repetition of the infliction. These were parricides and slayers of their kin.
There was a vast and hideous mountain, one side of it all sulphur and stench, fire and darkness, the other side covered with snow, and a piercing wind blowing. Innumerable demons, armed with burning forks and sharp tridents, would hale the souls of them that had been false and treacherous from snow to fire and back again. Another glen was full of darkness and fœtor, and ‘such was its depth that none could discern the bottom of it, though he could hear the sound of streams, and [perceive] the stench of ordure, and the outcry and wailing of the souls that were in torment there,’ and a mist uprose from it. A plank stretched across between the mountains that bounded the glen, a thousand feet long and a single foot in breadth, and such as none would dare to tread unless driven thereto by force. Tundale saw many souls falling from the bridge, and a priest passing over it unscathed. Those who fell into the glen were the proud and arrogant; nevertheless the angel bade Tundale not to fear that trial, though he must bear other torments thereafter, and he bore him safe across. Again they went on through dark and tortuous ways, until, weary and wretched, Tundale espied an ‘uncouth, intolerable monster,’ greater than the mountains which they had crossed; his eyes were like hills of flame; his mouth, wide yawning, might contain a legion of armed men. Two giants stood therein, huge as the pillars of a church, reaching from the lower tooth to the upper. Flames issued from its mouth, into which crowds of souls were pressing, driven by the scourges of throngs of demons.[198] A sound of wailing could be heard proceeding from the monster’s belly, for many thousands of souls were in there already.
Tundale, in dismay, asked why they approached so near; the angel told him that his visit was not complete unless he passed through the monster, for none but a chosen few escaped. Acheron was the monster’s name; it devoured the covetous, and the giants standing in its jaws were they who had been false and without conscience. After bringing Tundale to the monster’s mouth, the angel left him alone there, when a horde of demons surrounded him, scourged him, and drove him into the monster’s belly. Here he found himself in company of many other souls, who were bitten by hounds, lions and vipers, scourged by demons, suffering the while from the extremes of heat and cold, foul stenches, etc. Here the soul accused himself of all the sins he had ever committed, in grief and lamentation, tearing his face with his nails.
At length Tundale found himself outside the monster, and languidly opening his eyes saw the angel, who bore him to a broad, stormy lake, wherein were monsters innumerable, seeking to devour the wretched souls.[199] A bridge spanned the lake, two thousand feet long by one palm in width, studded with iron nails.[200] The beasts sought to swallow and chew the souls that were on the bridge, each beast being as great as a chariot, and a fiery mist issuing from their jaws, till it seemed as though all the lake were ablaze. Tundale saw a man attempting to cross with a burden on his back like a sheaf of corn. He was told that all had to cross that bridge who had stolen anything, great or small, bearing a burden proportionate to the magnitude of the theft. Tundale had once stolen a cow; he had, indeed, made restitution, but only because he had been forced to do so, therefore he had to cross the bridge, carrying a wild cow on his back. On reaching the other side, he pointed out to the angel that his feet were all bleeding from the spikes; this was because he had been one of ‘those whose feet are swift to shed blood.’
They went on their way through rough and gloomy places, till they came to a house, great as a mountain, and round like an oven, whence flames arose to the height of a thousand feet, and souls were burning therein. On approaching, they saw executioners standing in the flames, armed with axes, sharp razors, scythes, sickles, augers, hooks, ‘and all instruments beside, which might serve for wounding, flaying, beheading, or cutting.’ Tundale begged hard to be let off, but the angel told him that he must endure it, and handed him over to the demons, who ‘applied to him the instruments of torment we have before mentioned until they made small fragments of him.’ ‘In that house were much moaning and sighing, shrieking and wailing, weeping and gnashing of teeth, sharp fire scorching the souls.’ At length Tundale confessed that he had but suffered his deserts, after which he found himself standing alone in a dark place free from pain.
Upon being rejoined by the angel, Tundale asked him--as well he might--what was the meaning of the saying, _Misericordia Domini plena est terra_. ‘That sentence,’ replied the angel, ‘has puzzled many before you. Now thus is my King: though He is beneficent, yet is He wont to do justice.’ And he proceeded to expound the necessity for constraining man to follow his duty. None were entirely free from sin, but even the righteous were brought to see those sufferings, in order that they might see what they had escaped, and give thanks; ‘so were sinners brought to see the joys of Heaven, that they might grieve the more for their loss.’[201]
Another hideous monster there was, with two feet and two wings, and many necks, beaks, and talons. An unquenchable fire issued from his mouth; he sat upon a lake of ice, and swallowed the wretched souls, melting them, and dipping them into the icy lake for a renewal of their pains.[202] The beast became pregnant with these souls, who kept biting and tearing him like a brood of mountain vipers, until the time for delivery came. This gruesome conception is elaborated with a number of fantastic details. Thus were punished monks, canons, nuns, etc., who had broken their vows, who had tongues sharp as of vipers, and refrained not themselves from evil speaking; also they who had defiled themselves with inordinate lust. This punishment too had to be endured by Tundale. After it their way led them by a dark and devious glen, descending from mountain-tops into deep abysses, their path lighted only by the radiance of the angel. Tundale asked whither their road led. The angel replied, ‘This is the road which leadeth unto death.’ Tundale expressed surprise, for he had heard that that way was broad, and that many went by it; but the angel explained that the text referred to this life only.
After a weary journey, they came to a valley wherein were several smithies, and a great weeping and wailing in them. The smiths seized Tundale with their tongs, and cast him into a furnace, glowing fiery red; many souls were in it already, and the bellows were plied beneath ‘as though they were iron on the hearth, until they were reduced to nought, until they were turned into water.’ They were again uplifted with the tongs, and forged into one single mass, their pain exceeding all other pain, and they calling for death, which they could not obtain. After which they were passed on to the other smithies in succession.
The angel explained that all the souls whom Tundale had yet seen were destined finally to receive mercy; it still remained for them to see those that were in the nethermost Hell. Suddenly Tundale was seized with a great trembling, as he became aware of an intolerable cold and stench, dense darkness, tribulation and anguish, while he saw the foundations of the earth sinking. Turning to question his guide he found himself alone. He heard the wailing and howling of wretched souls, and terrible thunderings, but could perceive no face, nor distinguish any voice. At length he discerned a vast four-cornered cavern, in the midst of which a huge pillar towered up; fire and vapour rose up against the pillar, and in the midst of the flame many thousands of demons and souls flew up like sparks, and fell back. Tundale strove to turn away, but could not, for his feet clave to the floor; whereat, filled with frenzy, he began to tear himself with his nails. Demons surrounded him, threatening and reviling, but the angel rescued him and brought him to the gate of Hell. Here, he told him, was no light small nor great, but he could see the inhabitants without their seeing him. Tundale looked, and saw the Prince of Darkness, black as a raven from head to foot, with more than a thousand hands on him, each two hundred cubits long, and every finger one hundred palms in length, with iron nails like warriors’ spears, and toes to match; he had a long thick tail, covered with iron spikes. He lay on an iron hurdle over fiery gledes, a bellows on each side of him, and crowds of demons blowing it. Every limb was covered with chains of iron and bronze. As he lay there roasting, tossing from side to side, filled with rage and fury, he grasped the souls in his rough, thick hands, bruising and crushing them, as a man would crush grapes to squeeze out the wine. With his fiery, stinking breath he scattered the souls about Hell, and as he drew in his breath again he swallowed them down with it, and those whom his hands could not reach he lashed with his tail. This, the angel explained, was Lucifer, whom God had created first of all creatures, and of the rest some were angels of darkness, and some of the race of Adam; ever since their damnation they sought to lead others to deny Christ, and the greater the power of each, the greater was his punishment.
Here Tundale saw numbers of his friends and kin, whom he had ever rejoiced to see in this world, but now beheld with pain.
On leaving Hell, they entered into a great light, and came to a wall whereon were multitudes of men and women. Rain and wind were beating on them, but abundant light fell on them, and no foulness was there. These had led a ‘variegated’ life, in which good and evil were equally commingled, therefore they were exposed to wind and rain, hunger and thirst, until the end, when they should enter into everlasting life.
They next came to a forest, and passing through an open door therein found themselves in a goodly plain, covered with flowers and fragrant herbs, and the Well of Life in the midst of it; here dwelt the good who were not yet permitted to join the heavenly host. Tundale recognised many whom he had known, including two Irish kings, Donnchad and Concobar, between whom a feud had subsisted, but they had repented and become reconciled. He also saw a house of stone, without door or window, yet all might enter in who would, and it seemed as though the sun were in every part of it. It had no foundations, but was all set about with precious stones. In it was a golden throne, set with jewels, and covered with fine silk, whereon a king sat, calm and mild, while great numbers approached him, in gladness and rejoicing, bearing jewels and great treasures. Tundale drew near to see, for in the king he recognised Cormac, whose subject he had been. Great numbers of priests and deacons were about him in rich vestments, as though for the mass. The house was hung with choice drapery, and tables were set out, covered with vessels of gold and silver and ivory, as though for a royal banquet, so that they who saw that house would think that even though there had been no glory nor wealth beside, this would suffice for delight. All present fell on their knees and repeated, _Labores manuum tuarum manducabis; beatus es, et bene tibi erit_. Tundale wondered to see that none of those who were serving Cormac were the king’s own people, but the angel said that he was served by the poor and pilgrims of the Lord whom he had relieved, so that God had delivered unto him the everlasting kingdom by their hands.[203]
Even as they watched, the house was suddenly darkened, and all within it were thrown to the ground, and, lifting up their hands, said, _Domine, Deus omnipotens, sicut vis, et sicut scis, miserere servi tui!_ Then Cormac left the house, and Tundale, following, saw him enter into a fire up to the waist, and a hair-shirt on him from the waist upward. Thus he spent three hours of every day; the fire being the expiation of a breach of his marriage vow, and the hair-shirt, of the murder of a noble that was under the protection of Patrick, and of a false vow, all other sins being freely remitted.
Proceeding on his way, Tundale saw women, and men, and elders, in silken robes, and the countenance of each one was like the sun at midday. Their hair was like gold, they wore golden crowns covered with precious stones, and they sang _Alleluia_, giving praise, so that ‘if one heard them but once, he would have no memory of the grief and care he had known before.’ These were the saints ‘who had macerated their bodies for God’s sake, and washed their robes in the blood of the spotless Lamb, and turned their backs to the world, and crucified their will in the service of God while in the body.’
He also beheld many castles, and pavilions of purple and byssus, gold and silver, silk and other precious coverings, and in them organs and timpans and harps, and every kind of music, were playing. Therein were people of devotion, who had submitted their own will to God, and had taken upon them humility and lowliness, without pride or vainglory, and were submissive to their superiors, and found savour in spirituality, and had bridled their tongues, not only from evil-speaking, but even from good words.
A little further on they saw a wall, high and thick, all of silver, and no door in it. Choirs of saints were there, clad in white raiment, full of gladness and rejoicing, perpetually praising the Trinity. The radiance of their apparel was like the snow of a single night beneath the sun’s brightness. These had been faithful in wedlock, had maintained their people after the will of God, and had distributed their goods among the poor and the Church; to them will Christ say, _Venite benedicti Patris mei, possidete regnum quod vobis partum est ab origine mundi_. Another wall was of gold, and within it golden seats innumerable, all set with precious stones--pearls and sapphires, sardius and topaz, etc. Then they saw that, the like of which eye had not seen, nor ear heard, neither had the heart of man conceived: namely, the glory which God had prepared for them that loved Him. The nine orders of angels, and the saints mingled with them, hearkened to words exceeding sweet which none might record. In the presence of that vision, Tundale could not only see the glory that was before him, but also all the pain that he had left behind, for ‘to whomsoever God giveth power to behold Himself, to him is power to see all other creatures likewise.’ ‘From that time forth Tundale asked nothing of the Angel, for to himself was given from God knowledge of what he desired to know.’
He saw St. Patrick and several bishops, four of whom he had known: viz. Celestine, Malachi (the celebrated primate of Ireland, and friend of St. Bernard), Nemias (Gilla na Naemh Ua Muirchertach, bishop of Cloyne and Ross), and Christian. He also saw a great tree laden with blossom, and with fruit of every kind. Vast flocks of birds of many hues were on the tree-tops, singing every kind of music, and no scent of fragrant herb is known that was not about that tree. All round the tree multitudes of men and women sat in chairs of gold and silver and ivory, with golden crowns on their heads, and golden wands in their hands, singing, and praising the King. This tree was the prop and stay of the Church, and the people about it were they who had united to support and defend the Church, turning their backs upon worldly things, and leading a devout life.
The vision over, Tundale begged to be allowed to stay, but the Angel told him that he must return to the body. He further bade him remember what he had seen, that he might deliver it to the people of the world. He engaged Tundale to eschew evil in future, and promised to protect and counsel him.
For several reasons, it seemed advisable to relate Tundale’s vision with some fulness of detail. In the first place, it can hardly be that a work which so soon acquired, and long maintained, an immense popularity throughout all Western Christendom, failed to exercise great influence in the way of fixing, if not of determining, the views generally held concerning the Otherworld. Further, as the work of an Irish author, written in the centre of Europe, and almost immediately adopted throughout the West; embodying, moreover, while continuing and enlarging, the ideas currently held by members of the Christian Church respecting the future life, and, at the same time, containing many elements of distinctly Irish, and even pagan, origin, it reveals beyond dispute the existence, the manner, and, partly, the extent of the contribution which the legend made to the development of modern literature, after quitting the soil upon which it had matured.
The Vision of Tundale has many points in common with the _Fis Adamnáin_, _e.g._ the preference accorded to the martyrs and ascetics, the special provision made for the charitable sinners, the nine orders of Heaven, the episodes of the bridges and the Tree of Life, etc. Like Adamnán, Tundale expressed a desire to remain in Paradise, but was bidden return, and relate what he had seen. From a literary point of view, the work is decidedly inferior to the _Fis_; it is retrograde, too, in the absence of a definite scheme of the Otherworld; historically, however, it marks a forward step in the development of the purgatorial idea, of which, perhaps, it affords the most complete example which religious fiction contains, prior to its final perfection by Dante. It also prepares the way for the group of legends associated with St. Patrick’s Purgatory, for it introduces the idea of the Seer himself suffering the purgatorial pains, with a view to his own redemption; Tundale’s vision, however, contains no suggestion of a local purgatory in this world. In both these respects, he is followed by Dante, to some extent, though the comparatively slight annoyances endured by the latter during his ascent of the purgatorial mount--with the exception of the fiery wall, for which there was a special reason--were rather, so to speak, incidents of travel, necessitated by the nature of the country through which he had to pass, than sufferings inflicted on him for his purgation. In one respect, Marcus merits to be raised to a bad eminence among his kind: we have marked already, in the development of the Irish idea of the Otherworld, a growing tendency to accumulate horrors, and to elaborate and multiply painful details; but perhaps, in all the repulsive literature of the Christian Inferno,[204] there is no instance equal to the present of the length to which the mediæval imagination could go in its conception of the grotesque and horrible, the cruel and obscene. It displays nothing of the higher qualities which the author of the _Fis Adamnáin_ possessed: his devout raptures, his sense of beauty, his strong moral feeling, and his pity for the reprobate. At the same time, it shows how far Dante was from deserving the reproach, so often made, of the wanton accumulation of horrors; how much of the kind, in which his predecessors revelled, he rejected, retaining only so much--and that, in all conscience, was no little--as was necessary to enable him to represent the grim theory of his day, in all the completeness and vividness with which it presented itself to his imagination.
It is difficult to avoid making some comparison of the present work with the _Commedia_, for of all the writings of its class it is, perhaps, that which we have most reason to assume must have been known to Dante, for not only does it seem improbable that so widely known a work on his own subject should have escaped his notice, but there are analogies between the two, deeper than mere similarities in detail. Tundale, for instance, frequently applied to his angelic guide for the interpretation of passages of Scripture which presented themselves to his recollection, even as Dante had frequent recourse to Virgil, and afterwards to Beatrice and Matilda, for the like purpose. So, too, the sentences of Scripture which Tundale heard repeated in the region of probation may be compared to the similar sentences which Dante heard floating along the air in Purgatory. Tundale, moreover, met and conversed in the world of shades not only with persons of his own acquaintance and kin, as Thespesios and others had done before him, but with a variety of historical personages of past and present times, including semi-mythical Irish heroes like Fergus Mac Róig and Conall Cernach, and sacred personages like St. Paul and St. Patrick. Like Dante, too, he introduced incidents of contemporary history in which he felt an interest, such as the strife between the princes Donnchad and Concobar, and passed his own judgment upon the actors. The reward bestowed upon King Cormac, in the shape of a little kingdom of his own, is a curious instance of the same kind; it was probably due to an excessively literal interpretation of the Scripture promises. It recalls the aristocratic type of the more primitive Elysium. The vision exhibits the usual agreement with Dante in the provision of a special treatment for the ‘variegated,’ or half-and-half sinners, and the usual contrast to him in the nature of that treatment. Marcus follows precedents which had become inconsistent with the design of his work, which expresses the more complete theory of Purgatory as a separate state. Dante, apparently, was guided in his mode of dealing with this class of persons by his own sense of moral and artistic fitness. Marcus, in giving the name of Acheron to the flaming mouth of the beast, betrays a slight tendency towards that importation of classical ideas into Christian eschatology which Dante afterwards developed to such an extent.
Coming to similarities existing between single incidents, there is, of course, a general resemblance between the penalties, etc., enumerated by both authors, as in the lakes of fire and ordure, the flames and ice, the piercing winds, the scourging by demons, etc. etc.; there is also a more special likeness in the nature of the conception, if not in the details, between the grotesque transformations undergone by the souls swallowed by Tundale’s monster, and the terrible metamorphoses brought about by the serpents in cantos xxiii. and xxiv. of the _Inferno_. Again, the demon on the ice, in Tundale’s Vision, devouring the souls, resembles Dante’s Lucifer chewing the arch-traitors in the icy centre of Hell. Tundale’s demon, indeed, is not Lucifer, who is described later on as being roasted on a gridiron. We may note in this place that the Irishman and the Italian have exchanged the ideas commonly accepted by their respective countrymen on the subject: Dante making the sufferings of the inmost core of Hell to consist in cold, Marcus in heat. There are various touches besides in which the one author reminds us of the other. Tundale’s rescue by the angel from the demons,[205] and the strife between these in the fury of their disappointment, present a curiously close parallel to the similar incidents in _Inferno_ xxii. Tundale and his guide, after their rude journey, looking down into the gulf of fire and ordure, recall Dante and Virgil pausing in like manner upon the steep and rugged causeways of the Inferno, to gaze into the abysses of the lower circles. As Tundale was abandoned by his guide before entering into Hell, so was Dante left to himself by Virgil upon reaching the Terrestrial Paradise.[206] To Tundale, when in Heaven, it was shown that he could look back, and view the regions through which he had passed; so Dante, in Paradise, was bidden to look downward toward this world and its ways.[207] Other resemblances exist, but these are the most striking.
Of course it is not to be supposed that the continuation and development of the Vision legend at this period of the Middle Ages was confined to the Irish school. It was still, and had been since the earliest days of the Church, a favourite topic with monastic homilists and biographers of the saints.[208] However, it has not been my object to compile a history, or a summary, of this branch of literature, but to select those examples of it which have either carried the subject to a further stage of development, or, by reason of their popularity, or of their accessibility to later writers, may have served as links in the chain of transmission. Few, indeed, out of the whole mass possess any interest either from originality of invention, or variety of treatment, still less from any literary merit, and it is more than probable that the vast majority of them never passed beyond the limits of the community to which their author belonged, until they were brought to light by the researches of modern antiquaries.
Nevertheless, of the Continental visions which belong to this epoch, there is one which demands further notice, as well by reason of the exceptionally elaborate manner in which it treats the subject, as of the recognition accorded to it by later writers. This is the Vision of Paul, or the Descent of Paul into Hell, a Latin work known in the South of France before the middle of the eleventh century, and translated into Anglo-Norman by Adam de Ros, and soon afterwards into several modern languages. We have seen that the early Church produced a work known as the Apocalypse of St. Paul, but this, apparently, was not known to the later Middle Ages, at any rate at first hand, though the terms in which St. Paul’s Vision is mentioned at the opening of the _Fis Adamnáin_ suggest that at least the tradition survived, and several passages in mediæval visions bear a strong resemblance to the earlier work. It is probably to the eleventh-century vision that Dante refers in _Inferno_ ii. 28 _sqq._;[209] evidently he does not refer to the Apostle’s own words exclusively, for St. Paul in his Epistles makes no mention of a visit to Hell, though it is also possible that Dante had no other authority for this than the floating tradition.
In this Vision St. Paul was conducted by Michael to Hell, on the threshold whereof stood a fiery tree, from the branches of which were suspended by the tongue, leg, neck, or other peccant member, those who had been guilty of rapacity, or had given false judgment _por confundre la gente_. Near this was a fiery furnace, whereof _li feus est plus neirs que mors_, and in it were plunged they who had loved not God. They then came to a great and turbid river in which devils, in form of lions, swam about like fishes. The river was spanned by a bridge, the width of a single hair,[210] which had to be crossed in order to reach God’s presence. The wicked fell off into the mouth of Beelzebub, which stood wide open, vomiting flame, ready to receive them. Upon issuing thence, all black and charred, they were plunged into the river, where they stood immersed to different depths--to the knees, navel, eyes, eyebrows, crown, etc.--in proportion to the degree of their guilt.[211] These were hypocrites, adulterers, envious persons who had exulted in the sight of others’ sorrow--_por ceo sunt ore dolereux_, etc. Those who had made war upon the Church were submerged entirely. Faithless virgins who had violated their vow of chastity, and had destroyed their children, were clad in black garments smeared with pitch and sulphur, and aflame, while they endured the embraces of serpents and dragons.[212] Corrupt judges, who had abused the widow and orphan, burnt like brushwood amid walls of ice. Priests who had known the law of God, but failed to keep it, wore heavy collars about their necks.
St. Paul, like Tundale, exclaimed, and asked why man should be born for such misery; but Michael replied that beneath those depths a still greater depth remained. This was a well, covered, and sealed with seven seals, whence proceeded such a stench that St. Paul started back. Here were imprisoned such as had denied the articles of the Christian faith.[213] These called upon St. Paul, St. Michael, _and the ‘twelve peers,’_ to pray for them, and that so loudly that their cry reached to Heaven; but God Himself replied that no pardon was possible for those that had rebelled against Him; howbeit, He was prevailed upon by the prayers of the Saints to grant them the usual Sunday respite, which was made to last from none on Saturday to prime on Monday.
The authorship of this Vision is unknown, so that there is no saying whether or not it was composed under the influence of the Irish Visions. The date and other circumstances would admit of this, and it has much in common with them; notably, the manner in which the familiar bridge episode is treated is very similar to that of the _Fis Adamnáin_; nevertheless, the greater part of it might quite as well have been derived from other sources, and it bears at least as strong a resemblance to the Apocalypses of St. Peter and St. Paul; like them, but to a greater extent, it aims at the recompense of specific crimes by the appropriate punishments. However, there is a considerable group of Visions, the authors of which, though foreigners, have confessedly drawn from Irish sources. This series dates back at least as far as the time of Bede, to whom, likewise, we are indebted for the earliest account of the visions of St. Fursa, and for several particulars of the life of Adamnán. For Bede has recorded a vision seen by Drihthelm, a Northumbrian monk, who related it to one Haemgils, then a hermit in Ireland, from whom Bede received it.[214] The soul of Drihthelm, on parting from the body, was taken in charge by an angel, who brought him to a great valley in the north-east, which was Purgatory. One side of the valley was covered with flames, the other with ice, with the usual accompaniments of hail and snowstorms, filth, evil spirits, etc. They afterwards came to a great pit and a fiery plain, where they saw globes of fire rising and sinking, and in them the souls of men were imprisoned.[215] Here Drihthelm was assailed by demons armed with fiery forks, but the angel rescued him. They finally reached a wall in the south-east,[216] wherein was no opening. They were conveyed to the top of it, whence they could see a wide, flowery plain, and the light on it was brighter than the sun at noon. People in shining raiment were walking there; these were the _boni sed non valde_, who were to dwell there until Judgment. Beyond this could be descried a yet brighter region, whence fragrant odours and the singing of the saintly choirs were borne to them. This narrative, commonplace as it is, proves the early date of several features of some of the principal visions, which were composed at a much later period.
By far the most famous of the present group of visions are those associated with St. Patrick’s Purgatory, which attained to a popularity which almost surpassed that of the Vision of Tundale or the Voyage of St. Brendan.
It would seem that the earliest known version of this legend is the vision seen in 1153 by the knight Owen, and written soon after the middle of the twelfth century by Henry of Saltrey, a monk in the Benedictine monastery of Huntingdon, who received the story from Gilbert, Abbot of Louth. Owen was an Irishman in the service of King Stephen, from whom he received knighthood. Like Tundale, he was a brave soldier, but in the course of an ungoverned life had been guilty of rapine, lust, sacrilege, and other crimes. In the course of time he repented, and returned to Ireland, where he heard of an old tradition, to the effect that once St. Patrick, when his preaching had failed to move a pagan audience, wrought their conversion by causing a chasm to open, through which the next world became visible to them. Tradition gave out an island in Loch Derg, in the County Donegal, as the scene of this miracle, and there a religious house was established. Owen presented himself to the Abbot, and prevailed on him to allow him to enter the cavern, which he did after being duly prepared by fasting and prayer. He was conducted by a party of monks along a dark passage, and then through a brightly lighted cloister. After this he was left to himself, when he was assailed by a party of demons, from whom he escaped by pronouncing the name of the Lord. Like Fursa, he was exposed to repeated attempts of the kind, but always extricated himself without need of angelic succour. He traversed various plains set apart for the purgation of different offences. Among other torments, mostly of the conventional kind, which seem to presuppose an acquaintance with the visions already related, he beheld sinners of various kinds suspended from trees by the members that had offended. Others were plunged in molten metal to a depth corresponding to the gravity of their offences,[217] while demons tore them with hooks whenever they attempted to raise themselves therefrom.[218] Others were congealed in ice,[219] buried in fiery trenches,[220] buffeted by violent winds,[221] gnawed by serpents,[222] etc. Although the Purgatory of Owen resembles the Inferno of Dante in so many respects, it differs from it, and, indeed, from most of its predecessors, in not distinguishing between the various crimes that are chastised there. One instance of an idea common to the author and to Dante is very suggestive: Owen passed several figures lying on the ground crucified, like Dante’s Caiaphas.[223] Like Dante and Tundale, Owen recognised several of his friends.
He came to the mouth of Hell, which here, again, assumes the form of a demon’s wide-opened mouth, into which, each time he draws in his breath, swarms of souls are drawn in with it, to be again puffed out as he respires--an image already occurring in the Vision of Esdras before referred to. There, too, was the usual bridge, spanning a foul flood, wherein condemned spirits wallowed. At the far end of it was a crystal wall, and in it a gate of gold and jewels, which led to the Terrestrial Paradise, the halting-place of the spirits that were cleansed of sin, and awaiting their final perfection; while, to render this anticipation of Dante yet more striking, a multitude of these passed before Owen, chanting psalms. Two archbishops met him, and conducted him to the top of a mountain, whence he obtained a Pisgah view of the gate of Paradise, ‘like gold refining in a glowing furnace.’ Then, with a flash of fire from Heaven, the vision ended.
Nothing certain is known concerning the origin of this legend, though it evidently existed long before Henry of Saltrey’s day. As we have seen, it was accounted for by a legend connecting it with the Apostle of Ireland; it is referred to by Joscelin, also a twelfth-century writer, in his _Life of St. Patrick_, but there is no mention of it in any of the earlier writings concerning that Saint. Indeed, some chroniclers refer it to one Patrick, a hermit of the neighbourhood, and this origin is given in the popular story of Fortunatus; and it is unlikely that popular tradition would have had recourse to some obscure and even hypothetical Saint, if the connection with the Apostle had been generally recognised. Probably, the island may have been the scene of some local pagan cult, taken over, with the necessary modifications, by the Christian community established there, in something the same manner as St. Brigid’s fire at Kildare. From the resemblance which the practices there observed bore to those connected with the Cave of Trophonius and the Eleusinian Mysteries, it seems not unlikely that if the origin of the rites could be traced, some analogies might be established between the ancient worship of Ireland, and some of the more obscure Greek cults. However this may be, the legend of St. Patrick’s Purgatory soon achieved an almost unexampled popularity, and was speedily adopted into the popular fictions of most European countries. Marie de France, in the early part of the thirteenth century, made it the subject of a long poem, and was closely followed by several Anglo-Norman writers, while it is recorded in the learned collections of Jean de Vitry, Vincent de Beauvais, and Caesar of Heisterbach, and by several of the leading chroniclers, such as Giraldus Cambrensis, Matthew Paris, and Froissart. Meanwhile, the island in Loch Derg became one of the recognised holy places to which pilgrims even from remote parts of Europe, such as Italy, Hungary, etc., resorted for the purpose of procuring the remission of past sins, by undergoing the purgatorial discipline in this life, and the English archives still contain records of certificates given by Edward III. and Richard II. to several illustrious foreigners, testifying to their due accomplishment of the pilgrimage and its attendant rites.[224] I do not know to what authority it was intended that these certificates should commend the recipients.
The institution never received the formal sanction, nor even the approbation, of the Church, and in the year 1497 the purgatorial cavern was closed by order of Pope Alexander vi. For some time to come, however, the tradition lived on in various forms: in hagiology, as in the _Aurea Legenda_ of Jacobus de Voragine; in such specimens of popular literature as the story of Fortunatus; in Tassoni’s burlesque poem, _La Secchia Rapita_, and in the tragedy of Calderon, to which it furnished both title and subject. The two points in connection with it that concern us, are the facts that the legend continued the Irish school of the _Fis_, and that it achieved a popularity so widespread and so enduring as to render it almost certain that it must, at least, have come to Dante’s knowledge.
A few years before the Vision of Owen, a somewhat similar work had been produced in Italy--the Vision of Alberic, the son of a Campanian noble, and a monk of the famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. For the most part, this vision is constructed on the conventional lines, but in several of its details it is in such close agreement with Dante’s _Inferno_ as to call for some remark.[225] The commencement, indeed, appears to be original. At the age of ten, Alberic fell into a trance, which lasted for nine days. While in this state he was visited by a dove, which put its bill within his mouth, and carried him to St. Peter, who, in company with two angels, conveyed him to the nether world. On his way thither he passed through the _Limbus infantium_, which also is an unusual feature in works of this class. Among the penalties of Hell which bear a more or less close resemblance to Dante’s _Inferno_, are a valley where the unchaste stood in fire and ice to a greater or less depth according to the gravity of their offence; tyrants and infanticides were enclosed in masses of fire; homicides were plunged in a lake of fire, like blood; breakers of ecclesiastical vows were gnawed by serpents. One purgatorial infliction resembles the punishment of suicides in _Inferno_ xiii.: the souls in question were hunted by a demon, mounted on a dragon, through plains full of thorns and briars, where they left scraps of their clothes and flesh upon the thorns, until, being lightened of their superfluous flesh, they escaped, and were thus purged. Several familiar features reappear, and are, in some measure, reduplicated; thus, besides the bridge, there is a red-hot ladder, which the wicked have to ascend until they drop off; Hell’s mouth again appears as the mouth of a serpent, drawing in and ejecting the souls with his breath, to which are added a dog and a lion, who, by their breath, blow the souls to their allotted stations. Alberic, like several of his predecessors, and also like Dante, is assailed by demons armed with hooks. He crossed the bridge to the Terrestrial Paradise, where the purified spirits dwell until the Beatific Vision shall be revealed to them after Judgment. This place is a flowery plain, from out of which rises the Mountain of Paradise, surrounded by a wall, over which Alberic was permitted to look, though he might neither enter, nor repeat what he saw there. Alberic, too, received St. Peter’s instructions in cosmology--of a very crude description--and as to the virtues of a monastic life, etc.; he was then bidden to return and relate his vision.
As the influence of the Irish school upon European letters waned, and gradually spent itself, a deterioration in the Vision literature became apparent; it lost what little method and symmetry that school had introduced into it, and reverted to the primitive amorphous type; we can no longer trace any indication of original thought or invention; little, even, of vividness or picturesque description is left. Not that this deterioration of quality is attended by any diminution of quantity: on the contrary, several causes combined to render the output greater than ever. The rapid revival of ecclesiastical literature led, as one of its results, to increased activity in this long-worked field, and improved communications enabled the inmates of each monastery to study and imitate the works of their fellows in other countries and provinces. Moreover, the anticipation of a speedy end of this world, which prevailed towards the close of the tenth century, directed the trend of religious thought towards the world to come, and even after the cause had ceased to be operative, the effect remained. Then came the reform of several monastic orders, and the establishment of the friars, resulting in a renewed activity in preaching and teaching, which would naturally quicken the demand for subjects so well adapted to moving exhortation and edification; while the rise of pictorial art, which found attractive subjects in visions of Judgment, and representations of the Divine Glory, at once fostered, and was fostered by, the prevalence of those same subjects in popular literature. At the same time, the rise of a literature in the vernacular tongues would naturally co-operate with the development of a genuine theology to diminish the importance of the Visions of the Otherworld as works of imagination or vehicles of instruction, and to relegate them to the domain of the homilist and fabliast.
Accordingly, the literature of the Middle Ages teems with stories dealing with the Otherworld, and the lot of departed souls therein. Some of them occur in the lives of Saints and Martyrs; others describe a visit to Heaven or Hell, made either in vision, or _in propria persona_, or else record some traveller’s temporary return from the bourne, charged with a message for the living. Many were composed with some particular end in view, in order to convey a warning to some notorious sinner, or to instruct by the edifying fate of some one remarkable for virtue or vice; often, again, with the practical object of exacting restitution or reparation from the sinner or his heirs.
The subject was equally popular in sacred and profane literature, appearing in homily and apologue, folk-tale and fabliau, in poems serious and comic, tending to edification and otherwise.
In all this there was little enough of originality, or intrinsic merit of any kind, save only when some aspect of the subject happened to fall into the hands of a skilled _raconteur_. Nevertheless, it all served to keep the subject present to the public mind, and thus to afford that degree of preparation, which always appears necessary alike for the production and reception of any great and novel work of art, and likewise to amass a considerable store of material, ready for any hand capable of dealing with it. At length, in Dante, the one poet arose whose genius was sufficient to extricate from this heap of trivialities the great dogmas of the Christian faith which lay at the bottom, and, by his matchless constructive power, to give form and substance to the theme, to illustrate it with all that his age could afford of philosophy and learning, to animate it with the spirit of devotion and sublime human passion, and to enrich it with all the resources of the poetical imagination.[226]
7. CONCLUSION
In the foregoing pages it has been attempted to trace, from its various sources, the progress of the legend which culminated in Dante’s _Commedia_. It did not form a part of this design to collect the corresponding traditions which abound in the folklore of many times and peoples, nor even to give an exhaustive account of the forms which the legend assumed in the several fields which have come within our purview; rather to confine our examination to those examples which may be regarded as its sources, or may have contributed to its transmission, or determined the form which it assumed in later stages of its development. We have seen that Dante’s poem had been led up to by a long series of predecessors, like it in theme, if in nothing else, and that it had already approved its fitness for a place in the world’s literature, by the success which it had achieved, in countless forms, among peoples of widely diverse stages of culture. We have also seen how the Irish Church, in its palmy days, developed a highly characteristic treatment of the theme, and while following, in the main, the accepted traditions of the mediæval Church, introduced certain modifications of a strongly individual and national type. Of this class the Vision of Adamnán has been selected for a specimen, as representing the highest level attained by the school to which it belonged, and as being the most important contribution made to the growth of the legend within the Christian Church prior to the advent of Dante.
I have purposely abstained from offering a conjecture as to any possible indebtedness on the part of Dante to the Visions of the Irish school, and to the _Fis Adamnáin_ in particular, further than as these, by reviving, transmitting, and popularising the theme, placed ready to his hand the subject which was, of all others, best adapted to his genius, and, at the same time, best calculated to appeal to the public of his day. The various topics into which this examination has compelled the writer to enter--Dante literature, Celtic tradition, folklore, mythology--are all favourite subjects with that type of theorist who is wont to accompany a small modicum of the bread of fact with an intolerable deal of the sack of hypothesis, to the no small detriment of critical sobriety, so that one who approaches the subject with no preconceived theory of his own to prove--unless, like those present at a revival meeting, he be set a-prophesying by contagion--is apt to become almost as sick of these shadows as was the Lady of Shalott of those in her magic glass. I have therefore endeavoured to present the author of the _Fis Adamnáin_ merely as a ‘precursor’ of Dante, without attempting to prove him Dante’s ‘progenitor.’ All the same, I do not think I am transgressing these limits by suggesting the almost certainty that so omnivorous a reader as Dante must have been acquainted with works so generally known at and prior to his day as the Voyages of St. Brendan, the Vision of Tundale, and the legends of St. Patrick’s Purgatory, all of which were more or less influenced by the _Fis Adamnáin_, and were productions of the same school. There is no ground to imagine that Dante was acquainted with the _Fis Adamnáin_, nor can that supposition be entertained unless it can be shown that there existed in his day a translation of it into Latin, or one of the Romance languages, to which he might have had access. Indeed, pending the results of future research, it is impossible to put forward any work, or group of works, as the model which Dante followed. Probably no such model will ever be discovered, for the simple reason that none such ever existed. It is true that Dante availed himself freely of all that the previous Vision literature could give him, just as he drew copiously from every source at his command. But for the Latin classics, and Virgil in particular; but for the Latin Fathers, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory; the Schoolmen, from Erigena to Thomas Aquinas; the Romance poets of France and Italy, it is certain that Dante’s work, as we have it, could never have come into being. So much may be claimed for the Visions of the Irish school, and, apparently, no more, but even this much is enough to entitle them to a place in the history of modern literature. Indeed, independently of any such relation of cause and effect between the two, the writings of the Irish school would still constitute an interesting study, both as the fruits obtained by previous labours in the same field under widely different conditions, and even more for the light which they cast upon what is still one of the darkest places in the intellectual life of Europe.
We have had occasion to remark before upon several particulars wherein the analogy between the _Fis Adamnáin_--and, to a less extent, others of the Irish Visions--and the _Commedia_ would appear to go deeper than can be explained by their common subject, and their use in common of the same general stock of ideas. However, it does not appear that the influence exercised by the Irish school mainly consisted in the introduction of novel ideas and incidents, though even these were not entirely absent. Indeed, throughout the history of the Vision legend, we may observe a continual tendency to drop any national or personal characteristics which it may have acquired at a previous stage of its evolution. For instance, we have seen to how great an extent the popular Christian eschatology was modelled upon the classical Elysium and Tartarus, yet even the earlier Church works upon the subject contain no such references to classical personages and traditions as were employed so copiously by Dante, and, in a slight and tentative manner, by certain of his predecessors. The same may be said of the Oriental myths which formed part of the Hebrew contributions to the subject. So, in proportion as the late mediæval visions of the Otherworld recede in date from those of the Irish school, they tend to drop more and more of the structure and imagery which were peculiarly characteristic of the latter, as owing great part of their form or colour to the Irish national traditions. This process is carried still further by Dante, who rejected many of the most familiar incidents of the earlier visions: _e.g._ the bridge, the open mouth of the dragon as symbolising Hell, Enoch and Elijah beside the Tree of Life, and the bird-flocks about them, the special provisions for various kinds of the half-righteous, etc.
Thus, while exercising a secondary influence by further enriching the stock of material already in existence, the main function of the Irish Visions was to set a literary fashion, so to speak, whereby the Vision of the Otherworld came to be regarded as the most natural vehicle for conveying men’s thoughts and imaginations, as in other ages the epic, the drama, the dialogue, the pamphlet, the novel, and other forms of composition, have been specially affected for the like purpose.
It remains to say a few words respecting the literary merits of the _Fis Adamnáin_. Obviously there can be no rivalry, or even comparison, in this respect, between it and the poem which stands high among the supreme achievements of the human intellect. Noteworthy, rather, is the degree of excellence to which the earlier writer attains, when we consider what was the state of vernacular literature in the Europe of his day. His style, like the style of most Irish writers of the best period, is simple, picturesque, and forcible; the language is terse and pregnant, without being bald or meagre. There are certain writings of every age, differing much in merit, from which, as we read them, we seem to be hearing the author’s voice proceeding; where this is so, the style can hardly be other than good of its kind, however simple, and even rude, it may be, and however little it may owe to technical skill. This characteristic, I think, the work in question possesses; but this is an evanescent quality which must needs disappear in translation, especially such a translation as the present, where the aim has chiefly been at literal accuracy.
Mention has been made already of the advantages which this Vision possesses over most others of its class, by reason of its superiority in construction, which is manifested alike in the general design of the work, and in the superior grouping and visual presentment of certain portions, such as the description of Heaven, and the righteous assembled about the Throne. Our author, too, compares favourably with his fellows as regards his general cast of thought, as particularly in the stress which he lays upon the spiritual or emotional side of the sufferings of the lost, and the grave pity with which the contemplation of their fate repeatedly inspires him--a feeling wonderfully absent from the generality of his class.
Other characteristics are shared by him with the Irish romantic writers. One characteristic was common to both of them: there was _life_ in what they wrote; the scene of their narrative became a veritable _Tír na mbeo_. They possessed, moreover, that sensibility to natural beauty, which is often, but most erroneously, assumed to be the peculiar property of modern times. They were keenly alive to the amenities of woods and meadows, flowers and birds, to the charm of colour, of brightness and light of every kind. Above all, they delighted in melodious sound, whether the music of strings or of the human voice, the note of birds and bees, the wind in the leaves, or the sound of falling water. Like Byron, they knew that ‘there’s music in all things, if men had ears.’ Nor did this delight in Nature consist in sensuous pleasure merely. They too were aware of ‘a something yet more deeply interfused’; it was ‘the light of setting suns’ across the ocean that wooed the Ui Corra to their quest of the Unknown; St. Brendan yearned for that retreat, ‘secret, hidden, secure, delightful, apart from men,’ which the ocean solitudes alone appeared to promise him.
This national susceptibility to beauty constantly asserts itself in our author, in manner appropriate to his theme. He also manifests the no less national capacity for vivid and picturesque description, and this without being led into redundancy, or straining after effect, the leading characteristic of his narrative being a simple earnestness which is often very effective. It is needless to dwell upon individual descriptions, most of which have been dealt with in their place. It is enough just to refer in particular to the description of Heaven, of the Throne, and the celestial choirs; the naïve but striking symbol of Omnipresence; the waste and desolate places of Hell in c. 30; the various kinds of penalties in cc. 25-29; the picture of the generous but carnally minded souls protected from the fiery sea by a rampart of the alms they had bestowed.
In two respects our author differs both from Dante and from several writers of his own school. His work contains no dissertations upon theology, morals, nor natural science; neither does he hold intercourse in the world of spirits with his own contemporaries, or with historical or mythical personages; hence we do not find in it even an anticipation of the dramatic episodes, or the endless procession of lifelike characters which render the _Commedia_ a veritable microcosm. We are tempted to speculate upon the results which might have been obtained, had our author brought to the treatment of his subject the dramatic force, the vivid portraiture, and the narrative power, which are displayed in the great romantic cycles of Irish story.
Soon after the time when our author wrote, the development of the national literature, and, indeed, all other forms of national development, were brought, by pressure of circumstances, to a stand. Often since then the subjects and characters of Irish tradition have furnished themes for masterpieces of European literature, but these intellectual triumphs have been like the victories which Irish arms have won for others, and under banners not their own. It is only in our own day that any serious and well-directed attempt has been made to resume the interrupted work upon truly national lines. Even within the last few years the results obtained, and the promise shown, warrant a belief that success may prove more speedy and complete than could have been deemed possible a single decade ago; and with success may come--who knows?--an infusion into modern literature of a new spirit and new methods, of which it stands so grievously in need. Καλὸν γὰρ τὸ ἆθλον, καὶ ἡ ἐλπὶς μεγάλη.
[Uncial: U ċríoċ annso, Buiḋeacas le Dia.]
FOOTNOTES
[1] For further particulars of the life of Adamnán, see Dr. Reeves’s introduction to his _Adamnán’s Life of St. Columba_, Dublin, 1857 (Irish Archæological Society); Dr. Healy’s _Ireland’s Ancient Schools and Scholars_; Canon John O’Hanlon’s _Lives of the Irish Saints_, vol. i.
[2] Mr. Alfred Nutt has suggested that the above passage appears to claim for the Irish scholars and clerics a monopoly of the educational and missionary work of the age to the exclusion of the eminent Anglo-Saxons who were labouring with success and distinction in the same field. I had no intention to disparage either the original genius nor the learning of Bede and Aldhelm, Caedmon and Cynewulf, Winifred and Alcuin, nor their missionary and scholastic work, both at home and in the Frankish Empire; only to point out that the position acquired by the Irish scholars and clerics enabled them speedily to disseminate through Western Europe the works of their compatriots. By recalling the names of a few of the most eminent Irishmen who enjoyed a Continental fame during the Middle Ages, we may perceive how wide was the area, and how long the duration, of their influence.
Clement was the chief of a group of Irish scholars who took a leading part in the educational reforms promoted by Charlemagne. Alcuin, Clement’s great English rival at the Frankish Court, had been educated at Clonmacnois. Joannes Scotus Erigena, in the reign of Charles the Bald, founded the scholastic philosophy, and by his translation of the pseudo-Areopagite, and his studies of the Neo-Platonists, bridged over the chasm between ancient and modern thought. Dungal, in the first half of the ninth century, was the first astronomer of his age; at the mandate of Lothair, King of Lombardy, he founded a school which afterwards developed into the University of Pavia, with branches in several other cities, and laboured with success at the task of civilising the Lombards. Add to these Dicuil, a geographer of the same date, the most accurate topographer of the early Middle Ages; Firghil, or Virgilius, Archbishop of Salzburg, who taught the rotundity of the earth and the existence of antipodes; Sedulius, the ninth-century grammarian; St. Donatus, Bishop of Fiesole (fl. _c._ 840), traveller, topographer, and Scripture commentator; Marianus Scotus, one of the leading chroniclers of the eleventh century; and many others, who laboured with distinction in France, Italy, Germany, England, and Flanders, down to the thirteenth century, when Frederick II., Emperor, summoned Petrus Hibernicus to the University of Naples, where he counted among his theological pupils no less a personage than Thomas Aquinas.
[3] There was also a Tír Enda, between L. Foyle and L. Swilly.
[4] Tigernach gives the date as 624, which Dr. Reeves is inclined to accept, _op. cit._ Introduction, xl-xli. Lanigan is in favour of 627, which agrees with the reputed age of Adamnán, 77, at the time of his death. Possibly the latter date is correct, the difference being explicable by the different system of chronology adopted by Tigernach.
[5] _Lives of the Irish Saints_, vi. 708; and see _Ibid._, ix. 505.
[6] Acts x. 11.
[7] 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. Cp. also Galat. i. 12, 16; Ephes. i. 3; and the _Apocryphal Acts of Paul_, Ante-Nicene Library, vol. xvi.
[8] With the ancient Irish, the abode of the departed was beyond the Atlantic, towards the setting sun; so, in the Hindu mythology, Yama, King of the Dead, crossed the stream towards the sunset, first showing the way by which all men were to follow him. This natural idea has been shared by many barbarous races.
[9] Vault; [Uncial: inna luinge], genitive of [Uncial: long], = ship. _Qy._ here = ‘nave’?
[10] South-east, possibly because that is the direction of Jerusalem, the Holy City.
[11] The word used is [Uncial: Mórdáil], the name of the Irish National Assembly, or States-General. See _ante_, Sec. 2.
[12] Or, ‘a chair highly wrought,’ [Uncial: Inna ċaṫair ċumtaċta].
[13] The comparison of the arch above the head of the Heavenly King to a wrought helmet or a regal diadem, may have been suggested by the picturesque and chivalrous custom of the Irish kings recorded in the ancient Irish poem upon the Fair of Carman, whence it appears that their head-dress on ordinary state occasions was a wrought helmet, the royal crown being reserved for the day of battle.
[14] ‘Glow,’ [Uncial: derge], lit. ‘redness,’ which, Mr. Whitley Stokes suggests, ‘symbolises divine love, creative power, royalty.’ If so, cp. Dante’s description of a ‘goodly crimson’ as ‘questo nobilissimo colore.’
[15] Or, _qy._ ‘comet’?
[16] Compare the description of the seven walls of Ecbatana, of different hue, in Herodotus, Book I.
[17] So Windisch trans. [Uncial: Crand caingil], = _cancelli_.
[18] ‘Seats,’ or _qy._ stalls; the author appears to have in mind the construction of a Christian church. Cp. note to ch. 31 _post._ ‘Canopies,’ lit. ‘crowns.’
[19] Or ‘virgins,’ W. S.
[20] See last note.
[21] Or ‘parricides,’ [Uncial: fingalaċ], which O’Donovan translates both as ‘a fratricide, one who has killed a tribesman,’ and ‘parricidal’ (Supplement to O’Reilly’s Dictionary).
[22] The Erenach, or [Uncial: aircindeċ], was the official guardian of Church temporalities.
[23] [Uncial: Dánaib], which signifies ‘gifts,’ ‘arts,’ etc.
[24] [Uncial: pluic], which W. S. trans, ‘maces,’ or ‘clubs.’
[25] ‘Reivers,’ [Uncial: aiṫdibergaig], which W. S. trans. ‘men who mark themselves to the Devil,’ but expresses doubt on the subject, and cites authorities which seem to imply the sense of rapine or plunder.
[26] Or ‘without remission, but they,’ etc.
[27] [Uncial: Co lár], which W. S. trans. ‘down to the ground.’
[28] [Uncial: Roṫa], so Windisch from [Uncial: ruṫ]; W. S. trans, ‘wheels’ from [Uncial: roṫ].
[29] Or, ‘the ordained who have broken their vows.’
[30] [Uncial: Erdam], which, Mr. Whitley Stokes says, was the name used by the Irish ecclesiastical writers as equivalent to the Greek _pronaos_ or _narthex_. See notes 1 and 2 to Ch. 13, _ante_.
[31] Cp. _ante_, Sec. 2.
[32] The Mórdáil at which these laws were passed was apparently held in the year 697, while Finnachta Fledach had been assassinated in 695. This anachronism affords yet further evidence of the comparatively late composition of our version of the Vision.
[33] [Uncial: Anmċairdine], ‘soul-friendship’; [Uncial: anmċara], ‘soul-friend,’ is the Irish name for a father-confessor.
[34] Professor Bryce considers that the first extant mention of the Donation of Constantine is contained in the letter of Pope Hadrian 1. to Charlemagne, dated A.D. 777 (_Holy Roman Empire_, ch. vii. p. 112 note, 4th ed.). If so, the allusion is couched in very general and obscure terms. Döllinger, who dates the letter in question 775, holds that it refers not to what is commonly understood by the Donation of Constantine, but to gifts of land in various parts of Italy, afterwards seized by the Lombards. The forgery of the Donation would appear to be later than 750, but prior to 774, as it refers to the state of things existing before the first Frankish settlement in Italy, which took place in 774. In any case, it is later than the time of Adamnán.
[35] Philip succeeded to Gordian III. in 224, but was not his son, being an Arab. He favoured the Christians, and corresponded with Origen, whence arose a report, countenanced by Eusebius, that he had embraced Christianity, but for this there is no authority.
[36] [Uncial: Taiṫleċ], so W. S.
[37] [Uncial: Suṫi]. So Windisch, though W. S. trans. ‘fruitfulness (?).’
[38] Mr. Alfred Nutt, in his _Essay on the Irish Vision of the Happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth_, appended to Prof. Kuno Meyer’s _Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal_, 1895-7, points out that in Greece and Ireland alone of Aryan nations the Elysium legend existed devoid of any eschatological belief (i. 329).
[39] See _Odyssey_, xi. 36 _sqq._; 222, 391 _sqq._; 488 _sqq._ This gloomy impression is little mitigated by mention of the ‘Asphodelian meadow’ in which the dead reside (_Od._ xi. 539; xxiv. 13).
[40] See, in particular, Homer, _Odyssey_, iv. 563; Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 110, 166; Pindar, _Olympiad_, ii. 68, 120, which last, perhaps, contains the most finished picture of the Elysium drawn by the earlier poets.
[41] It would be possible to cull from the Greek writers a great wealth of allusions to the Otherworld; not only, however, do exigencies of space forbid this, but they are hardly pertinent to the present subject, for the reasons mentioned in the text. Still less need we enter into the burlesque descriptions of an Otherworld, conceived as a Land of Cockayne, several of which are preserved in fragments of the comic poets.
[42] The Greeks themselves referred to a foreign origin most of their mystical rites, and the deities worshipped therein. No doubt it is often the case that peoples who observe in foreign nations practices akin to those existing among themselves, are apt to derive these from the former; nevertheless it appears certain that while the cults which formed the basis of the mysteries existed, in a primitive form, in the indigenous Greek religion, they received a great impetus, at several distinct periods, through the importation of similar myths and rites from abroad. Thus M. Paul Foucart (_Recherches sur l’origine et la nature des Mystères d’Eleusis_, p. 75) accepts the Greek theory of the Egyptian origin of the Demeter cult and the Eleusinian rites at a date prior to the eleventh century B.C. These rites, he assumes, were purely agricultural at first, but at a later day (seventh century B.C.) became associated with the doctrine of a future life (pp. 75-9). He further holds that this doctrine was itself brought from Egypt by the philosophers, Pythagoras and others, who are reported by tradition to have travelled thither for instruction (p. 83). This latter part of M. Foucart’s theory presents certain difficulties. The name of Pythagoras is commonly associated with the Orphic mysteries, to which M. Foucart denies any connection with Eleusis, while the conception of a future life which prevailed both in the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries and in the teaching of Pythagoras, differed in important points from the Egyptian doctrine, as will be pointed out in a later place. Professor Rohde likewise holds that while the Dionysiac mysteries existed in Greece in pre-Homeric times as a minor and local cult, the Dionysos-Zagreus rites, which formed the basis of the Orphic mysteries, were imported from Thrace at an early date; probably, Mr. Nutt suggests (_op. cit._, ii. 141), during the period of change which followed upon the Dorian invasion. Thrace, apparently, derived the Zagreus myth from Phrygia. Prof. Percy Gardner (_Contemporary Review_, March 1895) is also inclined to accept the Greek traditions as to the derivation of many of their mystical rites and cults from Asiatic sources, differing herein from Prof. Dieterich, who holds that these were native developments. For a discussion by Mr. Alfred Nutt of these various theories see _op. cit._, 1. ch. xi.
[43] The best authorities appear to be agreed that there are no grounds for the views once held that the mysteries contained either some esoteric creed of a religion purer than that held by the multitude, and jealously guarded from the latter, or, according to others, a system of occult philosophy or theosophy.
[44] See his article, ‘Mysteries,’ in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ ed. 9, vol. xvii.
[45] Sir W. M. Ramsay further mentions a Rhodian inscription of the fifth century B.C., which required the candidates for initiation at the temple of Lindus to bring a pure heart and a conscience free from crime (_loc. cit._).
[46] This may possibly represent the conception originally prevailing in the mystic schools concerning the future life of mankind in general. (See Mr. Nutt hereon, _op. cit._, i. 256.) If so, redemption from such a lot would be one of the most important objects to be compassed by the theurgic effects of initiation, until the growth of moral ideas in connection with the mysteries converted this ‘place of filth and gloom’ into a place of punishment for the wicked.
[47] In like manner, the spirits were amazed to see that Dante’s body cast a shadow, as the souls of the dead did not (_Purg._, iii. 88 _sq._), and that he breathed (_ib._, ii. 67-9). According to the old Persian belief, the souls of the beatified dead were to cast no shadows. See Sec. 2, _post._
[48] See Books iv. and vi. of his _De Civitate Dei_.
[49] See Dante’s Tenth Epistle, addressed to Can Grande della Scala, _Oxford Dante_, pp. 414 _sqq._
[50] _Op. cit._, p. 416, ll. 173-5.
[51] _Ib._, l. 169.
[52] _Ib._, p. 417, l. 268.
[53] Lenormant, _Origines de l’Histoire_, vol. ii., cited by Ragozin, _Chaldæa_, p. 276, which work gives a compendious account of the subject. For fuller particulars see Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, 1887, Lectures iv. and v., and his article ‘Chaldæa’ in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, ed. 9, vol. iii.
[54] Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, 1887, p. 364.
[55] ‘She makes the soul of the righteous one go up above the Hara-berezaiti (Mount Elborz), above the Kinvad bridge she places it, in the presence of the heavenly gods themselves.’--_Vendîdâd_, xix. 30; in Darmesteter’s translation, _Sacred Books of the East_, iv. 219; and see Ragozin, _Media_, c. iv.
[56] In the Avesta we meet with an idea which is prominent in Jewish and Christian examples of the Vision legend. If, at the balance of any soul’s account, when his good and evil deeds were weighed one against the other, the scales were equally poised, he was reserved for the last Judgment in a place set apart for his like.
[57] _Vendîdâd_, p. 55.
[58] _Loc. cit._, footnote.
[59] _Vendîdâd_, p. 20, note. A similar bird occurs frequently in the Hindu mythology. The Accadian ‘divine storm-bird’ stole the lightning from heaven, and was thereby enabled to impart to man the knowledge of fire, and of divination by lightning flashes.--Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, 1887, 293-4. The Babylonian Semites identified this bird with their culture-god Zu, who, in form of a bird, robbed the gods of the ‘tablets of destiny’ (_op. cit._, 295-7). All the world over, the part of Prometheus has been played by a supernatural bird, such as Yehl, the crane, of the Thlinkeets; Pundgel, the eagle-hawk, of Australia, etc.
[60] _Vendîdâd_, vi. 15-16.
[61] _Op. cit._, p. 17.
[62] Speaking of the effects which the conquest of Babylon by the Persians produced upon the religion of the latter, Professor Dill remarks: ‘The conquerors, as so often happens, were to some extent subdued by the vanquished. Syncretism set in; the deities of the two races were reconciled and identified. The magical arts and the astrolatry of the valley of the Euphrates imposed themselves on the purer Mazdean faith and never released their hold, although they failed to check its development as a moral system.’--_Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, 1904, p. 587, where the author cites Cumont, _Monuments relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra_, and Gasquet, _Le culte de Mithra_.
[63] _Vendîdâd_, Introduction, sec. v.
[64] The cult of Mithra, which, in the earlier ages of the Empire, extended not only over the Mediterranean littoral, but throughout all Europe so far as the Roman legions went, even to Yorkshire and the forests of Pannonia, was full of symbolism, the meaning and even the nomenclature of which are only to be explained by the Persian religion, in which the cult originated, although it came to receive an interpretation consonant with the Neo-Platonic theories.
[65] He further suggests that the original notion of the Var as a place of refuge for the seeds of things from a coming destruction is borrowed from the Judaic account of Noah. This would seem to be a very strained inference from a slight analogy. The Biblical account finds much closer parallels not only in the Chaldæan traditions, but in the Vedic account of Manu and the Rishis being saved from the deluge in an ark containing the seeds of things, not to speak of deluge myths in the East and in the West, as the Thlinkeets, the Natchez, and other tribes of North America; the Muyscas and Orinoco Indians of South America; the Samoans, Tahitans, etc.
[66] He assumes that Vohu Mano (Good Thought) is the Neo-Platonic Logos, and if so, that the other Amesha Spentas are of post-Alexandrian development, and he goes on to find parallels for them too in the rest of the seven emanations enumerated by Philo. However, even if the parallels are so close as to compel the conclusion that the character and functions ascribed to the Amesha Spentas in their latest form are due to Neo-Platonic influences--and even this is not shown very convincingly--it by no means follows that the very conception of the seven celestial powers is due to the same source.
[67] We have here, in Persia, an anticipation of the Neo-Platonic æons before the time of Plato himself--a conception which can hardly be referred to the earlier theory of the kind propounded by Hesiod.
[68] _Vendîdâd_, Introduction, p. liv, and see p. lxi. For the dead casting no shadow, cp. Plutarch’s Vision of Thespesios.
[69] _Op. cit._, p. lxv.
[70] Article ‘Chaldæa,’ in _Encyclopædia Britannica_, vol. iii.
[71] Revelation xv. 2, and cf. _Fis Adamnáin_, ch. II.
[72] Herodotus, _Euterpe_, ii. 156.
[73] Dill, _op. cit._, p. 561.
[74] Athenian colonists were settled in the Nile delta in the seventh century B.C. at latest, and at an even earlier date intercourse had been maintained between Greece and Egypt by the medium of Greek traders to the Nile, and Greek mercenaries in the Egyptian service. The cult of Isis was introduced into Attica, at the Peiraios, in the fourth century B.C. (Foucart, _Associations réligieuses_, etc., p. 83), and extended over the Grecian islands and the mainlands of Greece and Ionia.
[75] Budge, _Book of the Dead_, 1901, 1. lxv., and _Ib._ lxvii. _sqq._ Le Page Renouf, _Hibbert Lectures_, 1879, pp. 180-1.
[76] According to one Rabbi Leo, the wicked are tortured by fire and otherwise, some without hope of remission, others for a time only.--E. Cowper, _Apocryphal Gospels_, Introduction, lxviii.
[77] At a somewhat later date, the doctrine of the end of the world by fire, held by many of the Stoics who, in the first century of the Empire, represented the best and most serious side of Pagan thought, would appear to have encouraged the bent of Christian teaching in that direction rather by familiarising the subject to men’s minds than by the contribution of any new matter.
[78] The speculative writings of the Rabbis belong to a time when the Jewish schools of learning had fallen under the spell of Hellenism. So preponderating was the influence of the latter that Professor Percy Gardner appears inclined to trace the entire Hades theory to the Orphic rites, and suggests a ‘great probability that the Christian doctrine of the Descent into Hades, together with the imagery in which the future world was presented to the early Christian imagination, was derived neither from a Christian nor a Jewish, nor even a Hellenic source, but from the mystical lore of Dionysos and Orpheus.’--_Contemporary Review_, March 1895. So Mr. Alfred Nutt, speaking of the Elysium of the Christian apocryphal writers, considers that the ‘source must be sought for not in Jewish but in Greek conceptions,’ and that the Christian Heaven derives immediately from the Hellenic one.--_Voyage of Bran_, i. 256, and see ch. xi. generally. With all respect to these eminent authorities, I would submit that it would be going too far absolutely to exclude from those parts of late Jewish and early Christian eschatology which deal with the theory of Hades, including the Descent thither, and with the description of Elysium, all indebtedness to the Oriental creeds which have contributed so much to that eschatology in other respects. With this reservation, we may readily agree with Mr. Nutt that ‘Christian eschatology, as so much else of Christian doctrine, is emphatically a product of the fertilising influence of Hellenic philosophy and religion upon Eastern thought and fancy’ (_op. cit._, p. 281); only contending that Eastern thought and fancy contributed much of the raw material.
[79] Le Page Renouf, _op. cit._, p. 183.
[80] _The Book of Enoch_, translated from Dillman’s text, with notes, by Charles. Oxford, 1893. See also _The Book of Enoch_, trans. Lawrence. Oxford, 1821.
[81] Cp. the veil of fire and veil of ice in the doorway of Adamnán’s celestial city.--_F. A._ 14.
[82] 2 Esdras iv.
[83] _L.c._ ii. 12, 18-19; and cp. Isaiah xxv. 6; Revelation xxii. 2.
[84] 2 Cor. xii. 2-4; and cp. Galatians i. 12, 16; Ephesians i. 3.
[85] _E.g._ in Revelation ii. 7. ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in Paradise’; and xxii. 2, ‘In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the Tree of Life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations’; also the Throne and One seated thereon in ch. iv., xx. 11; the sea of glass mingled with fire in ch. xv.; the city built of precious stones, etc.
[86] _Vide_ Dante, _Inferno_, canto iv.
[87] The fact that the work was most in repute in the Eastern Church, and that several of the leading Western fathers wrote of it in disparaging terms, may possibly be held to militate to some extent against this ascription.
[88] This passage, so thoroughly Dantesque, reminds us curiously of chapters 9 and 12 of the _Vita Nuova_. Indeed, the little episode might almost be termed a painting of Dante and Beatrice executed by one of the primitives. In like manner, the passage that ensues recalls the reproaches which Beatrice addressed to Dante on meeting him in the Earthly Paradise at the close of the _Purgatorio_.
[89] Herein the plan of the work accords to some extent with that of the _Book of Enoch_.
[90] _Ante-Nicene Christian Library_, vol. xvi. p. 480.
[91] Two Latin versions, together with the account of the pseudo-John, are translated in vol. xvi. of the _Ante-Nicene Christian Library_.
[92] Using the word ‘people’ in its wider sense, not as equivalent to the _popolaccio_, for there were persons of rank and culture among the early converts, but as distinguished from those who were in high station, or were remarkable for learning.
[93] _De Legibus_, II. xiv. 36.
[94] See Plutarch’s Consolatory Epistle to his Wife.
[95] Plutarch: _On Superstition, On the Tardy Vengeance of God, On the Impracticability of a Happy Life on Epicurean Principles._ Lucian: _Philopseudes, De Luctu_.
[96] See _Ireland and the Celtic Church_, by Dr. G. T. Stokes; ed. 5, 1900, pp. 169-174.
[97] _Op. cit._, p. 229, and cp. pp. 215-16.
[98] Edited by Mr. Whitley Stokes in _Anecdota Oxoniensia_, _Mediæval and Modern Series_, vol. i., part 3.
[99] G. T. Stokes, _op. cit._, pp. 228-9. For other points of resemblance and instance of communication between the Irish and the Eastern Churches, cited by the learned author, see pp. 105 _n._, 173-4, 186-7, 229, and Lecture x., _passim_.
[100] This classification, in theory at least, regulated the structure of society from top to bottom. There were four ranks of kings, from the _Árd Rí_, High King, or Emperor, of all Ireland, to the _Rí Tuatha_, King of a Tribal Territory. The territories themselves were divided according to a descending scale, analogous to the English division into county, hundred, tithing, etc. There were six grades of princes under the king, classified according to the extent of their lands. Society was divided into nobles, freemen, and serfs, and each of these classes was subdivided into a great number of minor grades. The family was traced to the seventeenth degree, and was grouped into six classes, whose rights and liabilities in matters of inheritance, in the receipt or payment of fines and damages, etc., are defined with the utmost minuteness. The land tenure, and the dues to be paid in respect of each kind; the circumstances of crimes and civil injuries, and the fines or damages to be paid for each; in short, all the details of public and private life, were elaborated with similar minuteness. For particulars, the reader may be referred to the ancient legal and customary treatises, and the respective commentaries thereon, printed in the Rolls Series, the _Lebor na g-Cert_, ed. O’Donovan, 1847, and O’Curry’s _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, ed. W. K. Sullivan, 3 vols., 1873.
[101] The _Filid_ must be distinguished from the _Bárd_, a name often applied to the poetic and literary class promiscuously, but really the title pertaining to a rank far below the _Filid_ in dignity. See Dr. Douglas Hyde, _The Literary History of Ireland_, pp. 486, etc.
[102] It is not to be supposed that so elaborate a system ever existed, or could exist, in its entirety, or that the population of Ireland was ever sorted out into sets of social pigeon-holes with anything like the completeness represented by the chroniclers. The old Irish writers combined two characteristics, which may appear, at first glance, contradictory, though reflection may enable us to see how compatible they are on psychologic grounds, viz. a tendency to run riot in the exuberance of fancy, and an equally excessive love of system and minute detail. Nevertheless, writing as they did of the state of society in which they lived, and for readers who were acquainted with the facts which they described, they cannot be supposed to have invented their systems and classifications, but rather to have idealised and elaborated their picture of an existing state of things so as to make it accord with their conception of the true significance of the social scheme. Modern writers have often done much the same thing in a different way, in their treatment of the Feudal System, the Imperial Theory, the Renaissance, Reformation, and similar movements, etc.
[103] The Irish writers are further remarkable for not confining their tolerance to traditional practices and the like, but extending it even to the spiritual beings of the national faith. This point has been well put by Mr. Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_, ii. 205: ‘And whereas in every other European land the ministers of the new faith were as bitterly opposed to the fanciful as to the business aspect of the older creed, in Ireland it is the saint who protects the bard, the monk who transcribes the myth, whilst the bird-flock of Faery, alike with the children of Adam, yearn for and acclaim the advent of the Apostle.’ And even when it has seemed necessary to regard these beings as demons, several tales show priest or saint feeling for them the like regretful kindliness as Origen, Burns, and Uncle Toby expressed for the chief of the demons. A very striking instance of the eagerness shown by the Christian writers to put the best possible construction upon their pagan predecessors, occurs at the close of ‘The Irish Ordeals,’ etc., trans. by Mr. Whitley Stokes, _Irische Texte_, III. i. 221: ‘The wise declare that when any strange apparition was revealed of old to the royal lords … it was a divine ministration that used to come in that wise, and not a demoniacal ministration. Angels, moreover, would come and help them, for they followed Natural Truth, and they served the commandment of the Law.’
[104] Most of the principal Irish deities include among their functions that of ruler of the dead. One of the most pronounced examples of the Yama type is Tethra, who is described in the legends as Chief of the Fomorians, whereby his distinctly Chthonian character is asserted; and, after the defeat of his people at the battle of Mag Tured, as ruler of a land beyond the ocean, like Varuna, when overcome by Indra (and cp. Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 168-9, and Pindar, _Olymp._ ii.). Thence, from time to time, he would send beautiful maidens to summon to him the chiefs and heroes of Éire.
[105] The subject of the Otherworld in Irish literature has been treated very fully by Mr. Nutt in his _Essay on the Irish Vision of the Happy Otherworld, and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth_, appended to Professor Kuno Meyer’s _Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal_, 2 vols., 1895-7.
[106] Extracted from the _Lebor na h-Udri_, by O’Curry, _Manners and Customs_, etc., vol. iii.
[107] A similar caldron was a favourite property of supernatural beings in the heroic tales of Ireland as of Wales; indeed, so desirable a possession enters into the folklore of most nations.
[108] _Aislinge Meic Conglinne_,‘The Vision of Mac Conglinne,’ edited, with translation, notes, and glossary, by Prof. Kuno Meyer, 1892.
[109] _Ante_, note 3, p. 44. The work is edited, with translation, notes, and glossary, by Prof. Kuno Meyer, who dates the composition of the tale in its present form in the seventh century; Mr. Nutt suggests the eighth century (_op. cit._, i. 141). Fragments of the tale exist in the L.U. Prof. Rhys identifies Bran with Cernunnos, the divine ancestor of the ancient Celts (_Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 85-95). Mr. Nutt further suggests an identity with Brons, the Fisher King, and keeper of the Graal (_Studies on the Legend of the Holy Graal_, 1888, p. 208).
[110] In the disputation between Neid and Fercertue which was to decide which of them should be Árd Ollamh (Chief Doctor) of Ulster, Fercertue put the riddling question, ‘What is it that thou traversest in haste?’ Neid replied, ‘The plain of age, the mountain of youth, the course of the ages, in pursuit of the King in the house of earth and stones, between the candle and its ending, between the combat and the hatred of combat, amid the brave warriors of Tethra.’
[111] Transcribed into the L.U. before 1103 A.D. from the earlier Book of Slane, now lost: edited (without a translation) by Professor Windisch in _Irische Texte_, vol. i. pp. 197 _sqq._ Professor Windisch, who states that the tale is composed of materials from several distinct sources (_op. cit._, pp. 202-3), calls attention to the thoroughly pagan character of it, despite the introduction of a passing allusion to Adam on p. 219. Portions of the descriptions of the Tír Tairngire contained in this tale and in the story of Mider have been rendered in metre by Dr. Douglas Hyde, _Literary History of Ireland_, pp. 202-3.
[112] As Zeus was brother to Pluto, and as the strife between the Olympian and Chthonian powers--the powers of light and darkness--are typified, in most mythologies, by discord between a pair of divine brothers; a conception surviving in such creations of the popular or the lettered imagination as Valentine and Orson, Alcina and Logistilla, etc.
[113] The episode is contained in the _Tochmarc Emere_, The Wooing of Emer, dated eighth century, by Professor K. Meyer. Miss Eleanor Hull translates the L.U. version in her _Cuchullin Saga_, pp. 56 _sqq._ Professor Meyer publishes a shorter version, with translation, in the _Revue Celtique_, xi. 442 _sq._
[114] Mr. Nutt gives abstracts of these stories in the _Voyage of Bran_, i. 297 _sqq._
[115] In the Perceval legend, a bridge of glass occurs in Gautier’s continuation of the _Conte du Graal_ (Nutt, _Studies_, etc., p. 17).
[116] A similar ‘obstacle bridge’ occurs in other Irish Sagas. In the _Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach_ is a bridge of glass, on which the passenger kept falling backwards. Of this kind must have been the bridge which the celebrated Irish M.P.--real or mythical--described as ‘separating’ two shores.
[117] Edited and translated by Professor K. Meyer in _Revue Celtique_, x. 212 _sqq._, from the MSS. in T. C. D.--H. 2, 16 and Eg. 1782.
[118] This flagstone, the Lia Fáil, was endowed with the property of shrieking whenever pressed by the foot of a lawful king. The frequency of vocal stones in Irish legend will be referred to later on. Popular tradition identifies the Lia Fáil with the stone now inside the Coronation Chair at Westminster, stolen by Edward I. from Scone, where the kings of Alban used to be crowned upon it, and whither it was said to have been brought from Tara by the Dalriad Scots. I believe, however, that the identity of the stone so taken to Scotland by the Dalriada with that of Tara has been impugned. The practice of inaugurating a king or chief upon a certain stone survived into late historical times.
[119] The habitual presence of the great tree outside the raths of the Tuatha Dé Danann is doubtless to be ascribed to the custom which prevailed in Ireland of having in a similar position a public tree of the tribe, round or beside which assemblies were held and games celebrated. The Irish chronicles frequently report the cutting down of such a tree by raiders as an insult to the invaded tribe. This practice was exactly paralleled in the mediæval republics of Italy, where an invading army would often put scorn and offence upon a city by cutting down the public tree which stood outside the gates, and was the central point in games and festivals.
[120] Cethlenn was the wife of Balor of the Mighty Blows, a Fomorian chief, and therefore of the Chthonian race of Tethra. She has left her name to Enniskillen, Inis Cethlenn, Cethlenn’s Island.
[121] _The Adventures of Árt, son of Conn, and the Courtship of Delbchaem, Érin_, iii. 149 _sqq._ Edited and translated by Mr. R. I. Best, from the _Echtra Áirt_, one of the _Prím-scéla_ of Ireland, preserved in Early Modern Irish in the Book of Fermoy, R.I.A., a MS. of the fifteenth century.
[122] Edited, with translation and notes, by Mr. Whitley Stokes, _Irische Texte_, III. i. 183 _sqq._, from the Book of Ballymote, R.I.A., and the Yellow Book of Lecan, T.C.D., both MSS. of the fourteenth century.
[123] Another instance of the sacred character with which the Irish code of honour invested a pledge, and which is apparent in the stories, before quoted, of Mider, Conn, Árt, etc. So in the _Baile Mongáin_, a story printed by Prof. K. Meyer as an appendix to his _Voyage of Bran_, Mongán is obliged to surrender his wife Dubhlaca to the King of Leinster (apparently an euhemerisation of Manannán, who figures in an earlier version, also given by Prof. Meyer (_op. cit._)) in fulfilment of a like promise.
[124] At the same time, it is perceptible that incidents of the _märchen_ type are more numerous in this group than in the great heroic cycles.
[125] In the story of Cormac, Manannán’s Paradise, instead of lying oversea, is placed within a dún, at which Cormac arrives by land.
[126] So the group of Carolingian romances, which long passed for the work of Archbishop Turpin, retained the characteristics of a barbarous society in their views concerning magic, superstition, morals, etc., though sanctified by the addition of ecclesiastical miracles, and other matters of edification, which earned for it the formal approval of Pope Calixtus II. in the year 1122.
[127] Manannán is presented in like fashion in the story of Mongán, _op. cit._
[128] So in the tale of Mider, _ante_, where, as here, it is introduced into the description of the pagan Elysium, Magh Mór; the ecclesiastical interpolations, as here again, being brought in in the usual incongruous manner.
[129] As in the _Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach_, an Imram of substantially the original type, treated from a Christian point of view. The trait is copied in the _Adventures of Tadg Mac Céin_, a late mediæval romance composed in the archaic style, where it receives from Tadg the characteristic comment, ‘’Tis queer, though charming’; he evidently regarded it as an example intended rather for edification than imitation. It is interesting to note how the idea recurs in modern Irish poetry, as, indeed, practically, in Irish peasant life. In poor Mangan’s beautiful _Love Ballad_, translated or imitated from the Irish, the hero--
‘Sheltered by the sloe-bush black, Sat, laughed, and talked, while thick sleet fell, And cold rain. Thanks to God! no guilty leaven Dashed our childish mirth. You rejoice for this in Heaven, I not less on earth.’
[130] One of the most explicit instances occurs in the Graal series, in the _Queste_, when Perceval is informed that the Castle of Maidens is Hell, and the captives therein are the souls that await Christ’s coming; the seven knights that defend the castle being the seven deadly sins (Nutt, _Studies_, etc., p. 41).
[131] Edited and translated by Mr. W. Stokes in _Rev. Celtique_, ix.-x., from a version contained in the L.U., parts being completed from later versions. Cf. _Voyage of Bran_, i. 162-3.
[132]
Pars in gramineis exercent membra palaestris; Contendunt ludo, et fulva luctantur arena, etc.
VIRG., _Æn._, vi. 642-3.
[133] _Odyssey_, ix. 481 _sqq._
[134] David Fitzgerald, ‘Popular Tales of Ireland,’ _Rev. Celtique_, iv. 189 _sqq._
[135] The root conception belongs to the common stock of Celtic tradition. We shall see more of the fiery rampart later on; for the revolving wall, cp. the castle in the Welsh story of Peredur, which spun round faster than the winds.
[136] Probably a reminiscence of some hermit who had chosen a snowy region in the North for his retreat.
[137] A similar miraculous provision by the agency of some animal occurs in the legends of several of the Irish hermits. In Wolfram’s _Parzifal_, the Grail appears as a ‘stone which yields all manner of food and drink, the power of which is sustained by a dove, who every week lays a Host upon it.’--Nutt, _Studies_, etc., p. 25.
[138] _Vita S. Columbæ_, I. xiv.
[139] _Iomram Churraig h-Ua g-Corra_, ed. and trans, by Mr. W. Stokes, in _Rev. Celt._, xiv. 22 _sqq._, from the Book of Fermoy, a MS. of the fourteenth century. The tale, in its present form, is later than that of Maelduin, though Professor Zimmer considers that the original was written early in the eighth century, the present being probably ‘a thirteenth-century _rifacimento_, save the opening portion, which he (Zimmer) thus looks upon as being the earliest fragment of this genre of story-telling.’--Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_, i. 162. Mr. Stokes, however, regards the extant version as a work of the eleventh century, _loc. cit._
[140] Here, again, the harp in the hands of a modern minstrel re-echoes the ancient tune:
‘And, as I watch the line of light, that plays Along the smooth wave, tow’rd the burning west, I long to tread that golden path of rays, And think ’twould lead to some bright isle of rest.’--MOORE.
[141] A similar belief existed in the old Latin religion. Outside the city gates of every town there used to be a pit, the ‘Mundus,’ which was regarded as the receptacle of the souls of the dead. It was covered with a flagstone, which was lifted on three days in the year, occurring in August, October, and November, to give the imprisoned souls a holiday. Cp. the belief, once prevalent all over Europe, and still existing in many parts, that on All Souls’ Eve the spirits would go through their towns in procession, and visit their former homes.
[142] _Imrum Snedghusa agus Mic Ríagla_, ed. and trans, by Mr. Whitley Stokes, _Rev. Celt._, ix. 12 _sqq._, from the Yellow Book of Lecan, before mentioned; and see O’Curry, _MS. Materials of Irish History_, pp. 333 _sqq._ Mr. Stokes ascribes the tale to the middle of the seventh century; Mr. Nutt, to the middle or latter part of the ninth century.--_Voyage of Bran_, i. 231.
[143] The anticipation of a general battle immediately prior to the Judgment, though an article of many religions (_e.g._ the Persian, the Norse, etc.), is unusual in Irish writings of the present class; it is probably suggested by the prophecies contained in the Revelations, and in the prophetical books of the Old Testament, more especially the mention of the Battle of Armageddon in Rev. xvi. The mention of Enoch in connection with this battle is singular, and suggests the legend of Enoch in the Talmud. The disappearance of a national hero, and his seclusion until he shall appear to take part in some great conflict, though common to the traditions of most races (some of the most familiar being Arthur, Dietrich of Berne, Holger Danske, Frederick II.--not Frederick I., Barbarossa), has always appealed to the Irish imagination, and recurs in the modern folk-tales of Gearoid Iarla, O’Sullivan, the MacMahon, etc. It will be remembered that on Mr. Parnell’s death many believed that the Chief was not really dead, but had only disappeared for a time.
[144] There is no intention to suggest that the _Echtra_, the _Imram_, and the _Fis_, or the tales in each group, succeeded one another in the order in which they are referred to in the text, either in their present form or in their original composition, least of all as regards the very ancient materials which are embodied in all of them. It has been attempted to present them in such order as may best illustrate the development of the eschatological idea, and the increasing fusion of native traditions with the Church legends. A later writer, on account of his subject, or for other reasons, might sometimes employ a more archaic form of narrative than some of his predecessors.
[145] Sanctorum quoque angelorum dulces et suavissimas frequentationes luminosas habere meruit. Quorumdam justorum animas crebro ab angelis ad summa coelorum vehi, Sancto revelante Spiritu, videbat. Sed et reproborum alias ad inferna a demonibus ferri saepenumero aspiciebat.--_Vita S. Columbæ_, I. i. Part III. of the Life is largely devoted to these visions, which, however, do not throw light upon our subject.
[146] Bede, _Hist. Eccl._, III. xix., where the author relates St. Fursa’s arrival in England from Ireland, and gives an account of his visions. See, too, the Very Rev. Canon O’Hanlon, _Lives of the Irish Saints_, under 16th January, where an account is given of several Acts, Visions, etc., of St. Fursa, mostly of the usual mediæval type.
[147] Probably suggested by Ephesians vi. 16.
[148] This episode suggests the manner in which Virgil protected Dante from the onset of Filippo Argenti (_Inf._ viii. 40 _sqq._), though the latter passage does not contain any moral, in connection with Dante’s own previous conduct, as is the case in Fursa’s vision, and in similar moral legends of the Middle Ages.
[149] _The Vision of Laisrén_, in _Stories and Songs from Irish MSS._, by Professor Kuno Meyer, _Otia Merseiana_, i. 1899; ed. and trans. with notes from Rawlinson B. 512, a fifteenth-century MS. in the Bodleian. Professor Meyer considers that the original was an O. I. work of the late ninth or early tenth century (p. 112).
[150] Edited by Mr. Whitley Stokes, in _A Middle Irish Homily, Rev. Celt._, iv. 245 _sq._
[151] Cited by Mr. Nutt, _Voyage of Bran_, i. 225, where it is suggested that this circumstance may have arisen in the distinction between the Pagan Elysium and Heaven, a provisional Hell being added for the sake of symmetry. But it appears quite as probable that this classification may be another instance of the acquaintance of the Irish Church with Eastern writers, for the fourfold division already exists in the _Book of Enoch_, c. 22, the several categories being: (1) The martyrs, as in the _Fis Adamnáin_; (2) The rest of the righteous; (3) Sinners who have been punished in this life; (4) Sinners who have not made expiation.
[152] Cp. Milton, _Paradise Lost_, i. 61-3:--
‘A dungeon horrible on all sides round, As one great furnace, flamed; yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible.’
[153] Possibly this amplification of the usual description of the Piast owes something to the picture of Rumour, in Book iv. of the _Æneid_.
[154] David Fitzgerald, _loc. cit._, pp. 192-3, where he cites from Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers_, a passage of the Vedas: ‘Two birds sit on the top of the imperishable açvattha, one eating its figs, and the other looking on.’ He also cites from the _Félire Oengusa_: ‘A great tree that was in the Eastern world, and the heathens used to worship it, so that the Christians fasted against all the Saints of Europe that the tree might fall, _et statim cecidit_.’ This passage contrasts curiously with the terms in which the ‘great tree’ is described in other Irish writings. The _Félire_ also speaks of Elijah, Gospel in hand, preaching to the spirits under the Tree of Life in Paradise, while the bird-flocks come to eat the berries of it, which are sweeter than honey and headier than wine; just as the ale of the Tír Tairngire is described as headier than the ale of Éire.
The human souls in the form of birds are a variant of a belief of world-wide extent. In Lithuania and the neighbouring countries the belief still exists, or existed lately, that the souls of dead children return as birds. Nearer to the present instance is the Mohammedan belief that the martyrs for Islam feast on the fruits of Paradise in the shape of beautiful green birds.
[155] Cp. hereon Professor Alessandro d’Ancona, _I Precursori di Dante_ (Firenze, 1874), pp. 29-30, 108, etc.
[156] Cp. _Inferno_, i. 144 _sqq._: ‘loco eterno Ove udirai le disperate strida, Di quegli antichi spiriti dolenti, Chè la seconda morte ciascun grida: E poi vedrai,’ etc.
[157] In nearly all the visions the seer is provided with a guide or instructor, though there is a great variety in the persons invested with this office. The earliest of these is the Archangel Michael in the Book of Enoch, and he retains his functions in a large proportion of the subsequent visions, and even in the conventional relations of a visit to Hades in Renaissance and post-Renaissance literature. Dryden, indeed, in his Essay on Epic Poetry, complains of the unfair share of work in this department that is thrust upon him. In the Vision of Esdras he is associated with Gabriel and thirty-four other angels. In the Vision of Fursa he is conducted by three angels who represent the Trinity. In other narratives St. Paul or St. Peter figures. In the later mediæval visions the guardian angel appears in this capacity with increasing frequency, and in particular in the Irish legends from the time of St. Patrick, who received his revelations through the mouth of his angel Victor. In the Shepherd of Hermas, the apparition of the object of Hermas’s affection, followed by that of the sibyl-like personification of the Church, is a very curious anticipation of Beatrice instigating Virgil to undertake Dante’s guidance.
[158] Cp. the manner in which the Dé Danann chiefs are often represented in the heroic romances, sitting in state in their dúns: _e.g._ Lugh Mac Cethlenn, in the story of Conn, thus enthroned, with a great tree in the doorway of his dún, and the birds singing on it.
[159] Revelation iv., xx., etc. Cp. the Book of Enoch, where One clad in white robes sits in glory in the crystal mansion, whence a river of fire issues.
[160] Revelation iv. 4; vi. 11, etc.
[161] A conception similar in kind, though different in form, is apparent in the dún with a hundred doors, and at each of them an altar, and a priest celebrating mass thereon, in the Voyage of Snedgus and Mac Ríagla. Cp. the Castle of the Graal in the Perceval romances. The accessories of Christian worship are frequently introduced into the Heaven of mediæval legends, though seldom with such minuteness as in our text. Cp. the seventh- or eighth-century legend of Saints Theophilus, Sergius, and Hyginus, who came to a church built of crystal and precious stones.--Ancona, _op. cit._, p. 32. This church, indeed, was not meant to symbolise Heaven, but corresponds to the churches on the mystical islands of the Irish _Imrama_. Praise and psalmody, as among the joys of Heaven, of course have Scripture warrant; it remained for Swedenborg to crown the bliss of his elect, who in other respects _se réjouissent moult tristement_, with the privilege of listening to sermons through all eternity.
[162] Cp. the Vision of Esdras, where the Apostles and Patriarchs and all the righteous are arrayed about the Tree of Life.
[163] _Acallam na Sénórach_, in _Irische Texte_, IV. i., II. 6089 _sqq._
[164] Mr. Whitley Stokes aptly compares the three fiery orbs in _Paradiso_, xxxiii. 114 _sqq._ However, these orbs represent the visible manifestation of the Trinity, and do not appear as circles encompassing the Divine seat.
[165] It is curious to note how Dante employs this symbol to represent the Imperial eagle, in _Purg._ xxxii. 125 _sqq._, which, in its onslaught upon the car of the Church, reminds us how the bird Karshipta breaks off the branches of the Tree of Life in the Var of Yima. Surely this coincidence, and also the frequency of the culture bird in the myths of unconnected races, afford good examples of the independent origin of similar ideas. In the branch covered with life-giving berries, brought by the eagles in the Voyage of Maelduin, we may possibly have a modification of the popular Irish tradition, further influenced by the Phœnix legend, or, maybe, some Oriental tradition, derived through intercourse with the Eastern Churches.
[166] In some Continental visions the Cockayne idea assumes a form more accordant with the Scriptural imagery, the inhabitants of Paradise renewing their youth by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life and drinking the Waters of Life (Ancona, _op. cit._, p. 32). The last item is evidently suggested by Revelation xxii. 1, when the Waters of Life proceed from under the Throne, as in the Chaldæan myth. By a certain meeting of extremes the Cockayne idea passes over into asceticism; thus, in order to express the abundance and luxury of the mythical Elysium, it is said that a single loaf, or the very scent of the apple-trees, or the like, affords sufficient sustenance; in later developments we find in the Persian Paradise one loaf suffices for so many persons, Connla lives for a month on the apple brought him by the _Leanamhán Sidhe_, the fragrance of the candles in Adamnán’s Heaven yields sustenance enough, and so on.
[167] Thus, Tundale’s guardian angel quits him temporarily as he enters into Hell. See _post_.
[168] The Irish legends of the Otherworld, and the _Fis Adamnáin_ in particular, offer so many points of resemblance to the Book of Enoch as to lead us to conclude that that work must have been known to the Irish Church. This is likely enough in itself, having regard to the close connection maintained by that Church with the Churches of Egypt and Syria, referred to in a previous section, where a parallel case was pointed out, viz. the preservation, in an Irish translation, of the Book of Adam and Eve, the original text of which disappeared.
[169] And compare St. Paul, 1 Corinthians iii. 13.
[170] The close agreement of this theory with the Egyptian belief has been pointed out in Section 2 _ante_.
[171] Cp. the angel at the door of Purgatory (_Purg._ ix. 103-4).
[172] Cp. the fire through which Dante had to pass in the seventh circle of Purgatory (_Purg._ xxvii.).
[173] It is remarkable that several of the most impressive incidents in the Apocalyptic description of the Last Judgment are omitted from the present, as from most of the other mediæval visions; a circumstance which may cause us to hesitate before concluding positively that our author had as frequent recourse to the Book of Revelation as many analogies would suggest.
[174] Mr. Whitley Stokes, in a note on this passage, aptly compares the Egyptian demon Apap, which devoured the souls of the wicked. He also cites an Old English homily, where a dragon swallows the wicked and discharges them into the Devil’s maw. The fertile mediæval literature on the subject furnishes several parallels, more or less close, both of a serious and comic nature.
[175] This is probably one of the additions made to the Book of Enoch in Christian times, cp. Rev. xx. 4-5, where precedence is given to the martyrs, the other righteous not being permitted to live again until after the lapse of one thousand years. Herein we have another form of the doctrine of postponed redemption in certain cases, though not here, to allow time for the purgation of sins.
[176] Cp. the similar fate of the flatterers (_Inf._ xviii. 113), and the stinking Stygian lake in which the violent are immured (_Inf._ vii. 110).
[177] We have seen that in Persia, as in Ireland, the ‘black north’ was the region whence cold winds and malignant beings proceeded. It is a well-known fact that cold no less than heat entered into the Hell of the Irish, as of the Northern nations, wherein they are followed by Dante, who, indeed, makes the sufferings of the inmost circle, devoted to the worst of sinners, to consist in intense cold. Cp. Shakespeare, _Measure for Measure_, III. i.:
‘The delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice.’
So Milton: ‘In fierce heat and in ice.’
[178] ‘Senza riposo mai era la tresca Delle misere mani, or quindi or quinci Iscotendo da se l’arsura fresca’ (_Inf._ xiv. 40-42); and in _Inf._ xvii. 47-48: ‘Di quà di là soccorrien con le mani, Quando a’ vapor, e quando al caldo suolo.’
[179] _Inf._ v., where Dante couples with them the angels who abstained from taking either part on Satan’s revolt, but _per sè foro_. In like manner the Irish writers, as in the story of St. Brendan, extended their more merciful judgment to these spirits also. The popular traditions of modern times identify them with the _Daoine Sidhe_, but without agreeing as to their ultimate fate after the Judgment.
[180] Cp. the devices to which Christian redactors of Pagan legends had recourse, in order to bring the national heroes within the pale of salvation: _e.g._ Cuchulainn, Concobar, Finn Mac Cumhal, Caoilte, Cormac Mac Áirt, Fintan, Tuan Mac Cairill, etc. The early Christian writers dealt in like manner with Seneca, Trajan, Statius, Lucan, etc.; to whom Dante, apparently on his own responsibility, added Rhipeus.
[181] This is the doctrine of St. Augustine, which Dante followed in _Inf._ vi. 106 _sqq._
[182] Cp. the brazen wall wrapped in flame in the Revelation of St. Paul.
[183] Cp. Revelation ix. 6, upon the authority of which text a similar passage is introduced into many of the mediæval descriptions of Hell. Cp. the Book of Adam, where the damned ‘call aloud for the second death, and the second death is deaf to their prayer’ (Ancona, _op. cit._ 107). So Dante, ‘che la seconda morte ciascun gride’ (_Inf._ i. 115). Cp. too Dante, _Inf._ iii. 124-6, where the guilty are eager to cross the river to their place of suffering: ‘Chè la divina giustigia gli sprona Sì che la tema si volge in disio,’ when, however, Dante was probably following Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 313-14.
[184] See, especially, _Paradise Lost_, ii. 587 _sqq_.
[185] ‘Now seeing that they who make this moan are the Saints, to whom are allotted everlasting mansions in the heavenly Kingdom, how much more meet were it for men that are yet on earth,’ etc., ch. 34. Cp. the similar passages in the _Félire Oengusa_ and the _Scéla Lái Brátha_ referred to in the preceding section.
[186] Verbal differences between the two versions are frequent throughout, though generally the later copy is the fuller, owing to the insertion of a certain amount of ‘padding.’ Far wider divergences exist between the different versions of most of the mediæval legends, _e.g._ the Vision of Paul, the Voyage of St. Brendan, and the Vision of Tundale. This circumstance strengthens the internal evidence of interpolations in the _Fis Adamnáin_. At the same time, it adds to the difficulty of determining the relative priority of the incidents contained in the several Visions.
[187] The Acts of St. Brendan, and the accounts of his voyages, have often been translated by modern scholars. Besides the collections of hagiologists and Church historians, standard works on the subject are Jubinal, _La Légende latine de Saint Brendaines_, Paris, 1836; Schröder, _Sanct Brandan_, Erlangen, 1871; Moran, _Acta Sancti Brendani_, Dublin, 1872. The Irish Life is edited, with a translation and notes, by Mr. Whitley Stokes, in _Anecdota Oxoniensia_ (_Mediæval and Modern Series_, pt. 5). In the Rev. Denis O’Donoghue’s _Brendaniana_ the subject is treated in an interesting and compendious manner. The summary of the principal incidents of the voyages given in the text, is taken, for the most part, from Mr. Stokes’s edition of the Irish life.
[188] The imaginary island of St. Brendan was delineated in the maps of the Middle Ages, and even of later periods. It was claimed by the Portuguese, but afterwards ceded to Spain. Many voyages were undertaken in quest of it, one so late as 1721.--Ancona, _op. cit._, p. 50.
[189] Father O’Donoghue points out that the whale episode appears too early in mediæval churches to be due to an imitation of Sinbad. It occurs in a mediæval life of St. Machutus, or Malo, which, however, Father O’Donoghue considers an imitation of St. Brendan, into whose legend the incident entered at a very early period, being mentioned in a poem by St. Cumin, who lived in the seventh century (_Brendaniana_, pp. 88-91), where the author refers to parallels occurring in the Mediæval Bestiaries. Signer D’Ancona (_op. cit._) says that the episode occurs in the Romance of Alexander, which is likely to be the origin of the Western variants. However, the idea is one which may well have presented itself spontaneously in several distinct quarters.
[190] Apparently a travesty of Manannán Mac Lír as he appeared to Bran in the _Imram Bráin_, but _quantum mutatus_, or, literally, _diablement changé en route_. Already have the Celtic deities followed the Olympians, and become converted into demons.
[191] Cf. Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 557-8, and Dante, _Inferno_, iii. 22-28.
[192] We may note one curious incident which illustrates the sympathy, before mentioned, with which Irish Churchmen treated the beings who pertained to that older faith which it was their mission to destroy. One day St. Brendan came upon a maiden of vast stature and exceeding beauty floating upon the sea, dead, and a spear through her. He restored her to life, and asked her who she was: she replied that she was one of the dwellers in the sea, who were praying for the Resurrection. He baptized her, and gave her the choice--to die, and go at once to Heaven, or to return to her own people. She chose to go direct to Heaven, so he administered to her the last Sacrament, and she died.
[193] Mr. Whitley Stokes suggests that ‘his feathers may be a reminiscence of some hermit’s dress of bird-skins’ (_op. cit._, p. 354). Or, maybe, of some anchorite who may have lived into extreme old age, as doubtless many did, in the condition of King Nebuchadnezzar after his fall, until his long white hair and beard suggested the plumage of a white bird. Or, again, it is just possible that this bird-like hermit, dwelling in an island Paradise, may be an attempt to euhemerise one of the many avatars of the sacred bird.
[194] The influence of the _Fis Adamnáin_ likewise appears in the opening portion of the Life, which cites precedents for the Saint’s devout and holy life among the worthies of the Old and New Testaments.
[195] The principal Latin Life of St. Brendan, though later than the Irish life, was written in the eleventh century. Both Lives, however, contain elements which the Lives of other Irish saints prove to have been of much earlier date.
[196] _Imrama_ still continued to be written, and the late mediæval story of Tadg Mac Céin (published, with a translation, in Mr. Standish Hayes O’Grady’s _Silva Gadelica_), presents a very admirable specimen of its class. That work, however, is a more purely literary production, consciously imitative, and deliberately archaic in style.
[197] The summary in the text follows the Irish version contained in _La Vision de Tondale_, V. H. Friedel and Kuno Meyer (Paris, 1907), which also contains two French versions in prose, and a fragment of an Anglo-Norman version in verse. The Irish translation was made in 151-, by Muirgheas Mac Páidin ui Maoilchanaire (_op. cit._, Introduction). The original Latin has been edited by Scade, Halle, 1869, and A. Wagner (with an O. G. version), Erlangen, 1882. For translations into modern languages see _op. cit._, Introduction, and Ancona, _op. cit._, p. 53 _n._
[198] In Christian art, Hell was often symbolised by a picture of the Dragon, his open mouth filled with flames, into which the wicked were impelled. This image survived in book illustrations into the eighteenth century at least. It occurs in many of the mediæval visions; possibly the Vision of St. Paul may have been the immediate authority. It appears so early as the Vision of Esdras, if not before.
[199] This lake corresponds to the sea haunted by strange monsters which swarm about the hero’s curach in the early _Imrama_ and in the modern romantic folk-tales.
[200] Signor D’Ancona (_op. cit._) suggests that the apologue of the bridge in the _Fioretti_ of St. Francis (cxxvii.) is an imperfect quotation from Tundale, as also a similar passage of Joachim of Flora.
[201] See the remarks in the preceding section upon a similar conception in the _Fis Adamnáin_, and contrast the treatment of it by the two authors.
[202] The destruction of the guilty soul, and its reintegration for a renewal of its suffering, dates back to Plutarch’s Vision of Thespesios. See Sect. I _ante_.
[203] Cp. the analogous ideas in the Shepherd of Hermas, and the vision in St. Gregory’s Epistle.
[204] It is said that the Hells of the Oriental religions even surpass those of mediæval Christendom in the morbid cruelty and obscenity, and in the childish extravagance of their descriptions.
[205] The angel who came to Tundale’s rescue may also be compared to the angel who came to the aid of Dante and Virgil when their entrance into the City of Dis was opposed by the demons (_Inf._ ix.). Signor D’Ancona (_op. cit._, p. 55 _n_.) compares the approach of Tundale’s angel, ‘with a radiance as of a star,’ to the approach of the angel in _Purgatorio_ xii. 89 _sq._, _nella faccia, quale Par tremolando mattutina stella_, citing the passage from the Latin Tundale, where the resemblance is still closer--_longe venientem velut stellam lucidam._
[206] _Purg._ xxvii. 130 _sqq._
[207] _Par._ xxii. 129 _sqq._ Dante evidently follows the corresponding passage in the _Somnium Scipionis_, or the derivative passage in Book ix. of Lucan’s _Pharsalia_. The manner in which the idea appears in Tundale is not analogous. The doctrine--‘to whomsoever God giveth power to behold Himself, to him is power to see all other creatures likewise’--is precisely that of Dante. See _Paradiso_ ix. 61 _sq_. and cp. viii. 90; ix. 73 _sq._; xi. 19 _sq._, etc.
[208] For many specimens of these visions, both of earlier and later dates, see Ozanam, _Dante et la Philosophie catholique au treizième Siècle_; Wright, _St. Patrick’s Purgatory_, 1844; Ancona, _op. cit._ The learned author of the last-named work has recorded several curious and little-known examples, and, in his notes, gives references to many works upon special branches of the subject.
[209] ‘Andovvi poi lo Vas d’elezione, Per recarne conforto a quella fede,’ etc. (_Inf._ ii. 28-9).
[210] For this extreme tenuity, cp. Al Sirât, the Muslim equivalent of the Chinvât Bridge, narrow as a razor’s edge; also the souls’ bridge of the Inoits of Aleutia, which, as in several mediæval visions, is of the thickness of a single thread.
[211] Cp. the fate of the violent in canto xii. of the _Inferno_. The traitors also stand more or less completely congealed in the ice, according to the circumstances of their treachery (_Inf._ xxxii.-xxxiv.).
[212] It is possible that this circumstance was suggested by similar travel tales told of the serpents of India, and preserved by the Greek naturalists. However, the idea is one which might well occur spontaneously, as one of the usual Otherworld applications of the _lex talionis_.
[213] Cp. the fiery sepulchres in _Inf._ canto xi., wherein, likewise, infidels were immured.
[214] Northumbria, it will be remembered, was Christianised by Irish monks, who planted monasteries at Lindisfarne and elsewhere, which long maintained the connection between the two countries.
[215] Cp. Plutarch, Vision of Thespesios, _ante_, Sec. 1, where the souls ascended contained in bubbles.
[216] In the _Fis Adamnáin_ Paradise is placed in the south-east.
[217] Cp. _Inferno_ xii. and xxxii.-xxxiv.
[218] _Inf._ xxi.-xxii.; and cp. the Centaurs in _Inf._ xii. 56.
[219] _Inf._ xxxii.-xxxiv.
[220] _Inf._ ix.
[221] _Inf._ v.
[222] _Inf._ xxiv.-xxv.
[223] _Inf._ xxiii. 111 _sqq._
[224] See a paper by M. Henri Gaidoz in _Revue Celtique_, ii. 482.
[225] Signor d’Ancona (_op. cit._, pp. 62-3) doubts whether this work was ever known beyond its birthplace in the Abbey of Monte Cassino, until its discovery less than a century ago, where Dante was not likely to have seen it. In the absence of direct evidence on this point, I leave the passage in the text as it stands, for the reader to form his own conclusions.
[226] Perhaps a reference should be made to the Vision of the Otherworld composed by Dante’s friend, the learned Jew Immanuel ben Salamone, as the question might occur whether Dante may not, by his means, have arrived at such part of his subject as relates to Old Testament lore and Jewish tradition by a shorter cut than the usual channels, which it has been here attempted to trace. Immanuel was born at Rome in 1265, the year of Dante’s birth, and, like his friend, was at once poet, scholar, theologian, philosopher, and exile, and, probably, one of the most learned men of his day. It is possible that Dante may have been indebted to him for stray pieces of information, scraps of Hebrew, and the like, but the debt can hardly go further than this. Immanuel’s vision of Hell and Paradise was not completed till 1325, and is a manifest imitation of the _Commedia_; it has been conjectured, even, that by Daniel, who served as his guide, as Virgil did to Dante, he signified the latter. See Signor Seppelli’s translation, with notes and introduction--_Inferno e Paradiso di Emanuele di Salamone_, Ancona, 1874.
INDEX
Abersetus, 36, 194.
Acallam na Sénórach, 187.
Accadian survivals in Assyrian mythology, 69.
Achæmenian elements in Avestan religion, 79.
Acheron, 216.
Achilles in Leuke, 143.
Achtlann, 149.
Adam, legend of death of, 84, 97; Book of, 203 _n._; Book of Adam and Eve, 114.
Adam de Ros, 230.
Adamnán, St., authorities for life, 4 _n._, 12; meaning of name, 7; birth and lineage, 7; anecdote of student days, 12, 13; at monastery of Iona, 8; Abbot, 8; missions to England, 8, 9; relations with Bede, 9; Paschal controversy, 9, 10; Boruma tribute, 15, 16, 17; relations with Árd-Rí Finnachta, 13 _sqq._; emancipation of women, 18 _sqq._, 45; death, 10, 22-3; character, 9, 12, 23-4; his learning, 10, 12, 25; his _Life of St. Colm Cille_, 10; cited, 157, 166; treatise _De Locis Sanctis_, 11, 114; his canons, 12, 18; apocryphal writings, 12; the _Cáin Adamnáin_, 18 _sqq._, 27.
---- The Vision of, date of, 25; MSS. and editions, 27; reasons of ascription to Adamnán, 25 _sqq._, 45, 177; Translation, 28 _sqq._; precedents and authorities, 28-9, 106-7, 180-1; contents discussed, 25 _sqq._, 174 _sqq._; structural design, 175 _sqq._; composite character, 176 _sqq._; literary characteristics, 174-6, 186, 246-8; ecclesiastical proclivities, 182-4; Purgatorial theory, 193-4; coincidences with Oriental eschatology, 83 _sqq._, 90, 193; compared with Dante’s _Commedia_, 181, 185, 187, 188 _n._, 189, 193 _n._, 194-5, 200-4; relation to Dante, 243-6; cited, 3, 22, 96 _n._, 133, 144, 152, 171, 172, 174, 211, 212, 218 _n._, 230, 232, 233.
Addison’s _Vision of Mirza_ and Bridge episode, 132.
Aelian, 151.
Æons, early Persian, 79; of Philo Judæus, 79 _n._; of Hesiod, _ib._
Ailill, 132.
Alberic, Vision of, 238-9; cp. with Dante, _ib._
Alcuin, 5 _n._
Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, 8.
Alexandria, Jewish colony in, 86; culture mainly Hellenic, 86-8; contact with Egyptian ideas, 88-9.
Allegory, in the Avesta, 74-5, 182; in Virgil, 46; in the Shepherd of Hermas, 104; in Irish legends, 135, 142, 144-5.
Amesha Spentas, the, and Philo’s Emanations, 78-9.
Ancona, Prof. A. d’, _I Precursori di Dante_, 175 _n._, 184 _n._, 190 _n._, 203 _n._, 208 _n._, 213 _n._, 216 _n._, 228 _n._, 229 _n._, 238 _n._
Angels, hierarchies, 30, 185, 223-4; guardian angels, 29, 86, 181-2, 191, 214; tending souls of dead, 35, 191 (and see art. ‘Guide’); porter in Otherworld, 35, 84, 193; fallen angels, 202 _n._, 211; angel of death, mistaken, 110, 111; angel giving light in Paradise, 34; in Hell, 214.
Anglo-Saxon scholars and missionaries, 5 _n._
Annals, Irish, see under Ireland; of Ulster, cited, 2 _n._
Apap, Egyptian ‘Eater of the Dead,’ 89, 196 _n._
Apocalypse of St. John, see ‘Revelations’ of St. Paul, St. Peter, etc.; see ‘Paul,’ ‘Peter,’ etc.
Apocryphal Books, Christian, abundance of, 101; Jewish traditions in, 97.
Apostles, Vision at death of B. V., 29, 107; in Paradise, 31, 98, 194-5.
Apuleius, 49.
Aquinas, Thomas, pupil of Petrus Hibernicus, 6 _n._
Arali, 70.
Arch, fiery, watery, etc., in legends, 32, 152, 160, 188.
Arculf, 11, 12.
Árd-Ollamh, the, 117.
Árd-Rí, the Irish, 116 _n._
Ariel, archangel, 36.
Ariosto’s enchanted gardens, Otherworld origin of, 181.
Aristophanes on the Otherworld, in the _Frogs_, 59 _sqq._; on the mysteries, _ib._
Armageddon, 163 _n._
Árt mac Cuinn, 133, 136, 138-9.
Art, sacred, and the mediæval legends, 186, 215 _n._
Ascetics, priority of, in Paradise, 39, 198.
Assyrian eschatology, 69, 70, and see ‘Chaldæa.’
Augustine, St., Vision of Curina, 110; purgatorial theory, 193; cited, 202.
Avesta, eschatology, 71 _sqq._; animistic conceptions, 75; allegorising tendency, 74-5; date and composition, 76; Neo-Platonic influences, 76 _sqq._; early Persian elements, 79; Oriental elements, 81; influence on Hebrew thought, 70.
Axiochos, pseudo-Platonic dialogue, 58.
Bagadas, Bridge myth among the, 132.
Baitan, 157.
Ballyshannon, Mórdáil of, 18.
Balor, the Fomorian champion, 135 _n._
Bards, the Irish order, 117 _n._
Battle at the end of the world, 163.
Bécuma Cneisgel, 136, 138.
Bede, Venerable, and Adamnán, 9, 10, 23; account of St. Fursa’s visions, 166 _sqq._; of Drihthelm’s vision, 233.
Béfind, 122.
Belach Dúinn, 8.
Benn Edair, 136.
Best, Mr. R. I., _Adventures of Árt, Son of Conn, and the Courtship of Delbchaem_, 136 _n._, 137.
Birds, mystical, 32, 72, 73, 154-5, 163, 189; as divine messengers, 72, 73; as culture bringers, 72; human souls in, 46, 160, 174 _n._, 189, 191; singing the canonical hours, 32, 85, 179; choirs of, in Paradise, 31, 157-8, 163, 174, 185, 189; in island Elysium, 160.
Birr, Mórdáil of, 18.
Book of the Dead, Egyptian, 89 _n._
Boruma Tribute, instituted, 14; remitted, 15 _sqq._; treatises on, 14.
Bran, son of Febal, Voyage of, 122 _n._, 123 _sqq._, 146-8, 189.
Brandenburg, Marquis of, legend, 121.
Brenainn of Birr, St., 154.
Brendan, St., Voyage of, 147 _sqq._, 202 _n._, 207 _sqq._; influence on European literature, 202, 207; his island, belief in, 207 _n._
Bridge, in legends of the Otherworld, 38-9, 71, 111, 131, 132, 139, 178, 197-8, 215-17, 231, 239; cognate traditions, 131-2.
Brudin Da Derga, story of, cited, 12 _n._
Brug na Boinne, Elysium in, 122, 189.
Brunetto Latini, reference to his _Tesoretto_, 121.
Bryce, Prof., on the Donation of Constantine, 45 _n._
Buan, mystical hazels of, 140, 155.
Budge, Dr. W., _Book of the Dead_, 89 _n._
Bundehesh cited, 72.
Burghcastle, monastery founded by St. Fursa, 166.
Cáin Adamnáin, see ‘Adamnán.’
Caldron, magic, 122-3, 141.
Calixtus II., Pope, and Carolingian Romances, 147 _n._
Callimachus, 88.
Carman, poem on Fair of, cited, 32, 115.
Carolingian Romances, 146 _n._
Castle, enchanted, Otherworld origin of, 150; revolving, in romance of Peredur, 154.
Castor and Pollux, 49.
Cernunnos and Bran, 123 _n._
Cethlenn, 135 _n._
Chaldæa, eschatology of, 69, 70; Hades, 70; visits thereto, 69; Elysium, 69; multitudinous deities, 81-2; no Rebirth doctrine, 80.
Charles, Rev. A. H., ed. of _Book of Enoch_, 95 _n._
Chastity ideal in Irish Elysium, 144, 147-8.
Chaucer cited, 143.
Chinvât Bridge, 71, 112.
Christ’s descent into Hades, 101.
Christian interpolations in Irish tales, 145-8; ideas becoming predominant, 146-7.
Chthonian side of Irish myths, 121, 129, 130, 135 _n._, 136, 138-9.
Church, Paradise conceived as a, 34, 164, 184.
Cicero, _Somnium Scipionis_, 64; approbation of the mysteries, 108.
Cinel Enda, 7.
City, celestial, 33, 35, 94.
Classical ideas in mediæval eschatology, 227.
Classification of departed spirits, 172, 198-9; of penalties in the Otherworld, 40 _sqq._, 105, 199 _sqq._
Claudian, cited, 49.
Clement of Ireland, 6 _n._
Clovis II., 167.
Cockayne element in Irish Elysium, 122-3, 135, 137, 141, 190; transition to higher conceptions, 144, 164-5, 171, 190.
Colm Cille, St., 8, 11, 18, 24; visions of, 166; privilege of order, 17; Adamnán, _Life_ of, see ‘Adamnán.’
_Commedia_, see ‘Dante.’
Comyn, Michael, _Laoi Oisín ar dTír na n-Óg_, 133.
Conall Gulbán, 7.
Concobar, mediæval Irish king, 221.
Condla Coel Corrbacc, 149.
Conn Ced-cathach in Otherworld, 133 _sqq._, 143.
Connla mac Cuinn in Otherworld, 126, 133, 143.
Constantine, Donation of, 45.
Cormac, King of Cashel, 221-2.
Cormac mac Áirt in Otherworld, 120, 133, 139 _sqq._, 146 _n._
Corpre Cundail, 149.
Cuchulainn, in Otherworld, 120, 127 _sqq._, 130; and children of Doel Dermait, 146, 149, 150.
Curina, Vision of, 110.
_Dá Brón Flatha Nime_, 174.
Dagda, Elysium of the, 121-3, 144, 183, 190.
Daire Degamra, 137.
Dante, antiquity of his theme, 1-3; his true originality, 3, 241; his design, 67-8, 181; Dante and Virgil, 67; non-classical sources, 68; how far indebted to the Irish legends, 243-6; Dante and Immanuel ben Salamone, 241 _n._; parallels to the _Fis Adamnáin_, 181, 185, 187, 188 _n._, 189, 193 _n._, 194-5, 200-4; to the Vision of St. Paul, 230; to the Vision of Tundale, 225-9; to St. Patrick’s Purgatory, 235, 238; representation of the Trinity, 186, 188 _n._; mystical bird, 189; cited, 32 _n._, 101 _n._, 103 _n._, 169 _n._, 172, 181 _n._, 193 _n._, 194-6, 209 _n._, 231.
Darmesteter, trans. of _Vendîdâd_, 71 _n._; on Neo-Platonic ideas in the Avesta, 76 _sqq._
Dead cast no shadows, 61, 79; nor move eyelids, 61.
Dé Danann, see ‘Tuatha Dé Danann.’
Delbchaem, 136, 138.
Demeter, 49; and see ‘Mysteries.’
Demonax and the Mysteries, 108.
Demons, malice of, 43, 204; opposition to the seer’s progress, 167-8, 170, 213, 233, 234, 239.
Derg, Loch, 234.
Derry, Mórdáil at, 18.
Dicuil, 6 _n._, 114, 115.
Dietrich, Prof., on the Greek mysteries, 54 _n._
Dill, Prof., _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, 75 _n._, 88 _n._
Dionysos, in the mysteries, 59; in the _Frogs_ of Aristophanes, 59.
Divinity, the, representation of, in Paradise, 32, 33; as a mystical face, 33.
Doel Dermait, children of, and Cuchulainn, 146, 149, 150.
Döllinger on the Donation of Constantine, 45 _n._
Donatus, St., Irish bishop of Fiesole, 6 _n._
Drihthelm, Vision of, 233.
Druimceatt, Mórdáil of, 18.
Drumhome, 7.
Dumas _père_, quoted, 1.
Dungal, 6 _n._
Easter, time of celebrating, 9; and see ‘Paschal Controversy.’
‘Eater of the Dead,’ Egyptian, 89, 196 _n._
Ecbatana, walls of, 33 _n._, 185.
Ecgfrid, King of Northumbria, 8.
Echtra, class of Irish romance, 118; E. Nerai, 132; E. Áirt, 136.
Edward I. and Lia Fáil, 134.
Egypt and the Greek mysteries, 52-3; early intercourse with Greece, 88-9; eschatology, 89, 93; relations to Alexandrian culture, 87-9; cults in the Hellenic world, 88-9; intercourse with Irish Church, 113-15.
Elborz, Mount, 71, 81.
Eleusis, see ‘Mysteries.’
Elias in Paradise, 46, 85, 98, 157, 163, 174, 179, 205.
Elysium, Greek, 49 _n._, 50, 58, 59, 63; Chaldæan, 69; Avestan, 72, 85; Egyptian, 89; Irish, 49 _n._, 121-6, 128-9, 135, 137, 138, 140-4, 146 _n._, 147; aristocratic theory of, 70, 143, 227.
Emer, 128-9.
End of world anticipated by early Church, 100-1.
Enniskillen, derivation of name, 135 _n._
Enoch, in Paradise, 46, 85, 98, 157, 179, 205; to reappear for final battle, 163; Book of, date, 94; cited by St. Jude, _ibid._; general character, 95; summary, 95 _sqq._; purgatorial theory, 194; whether known in Ireland, 192 _n._; compared with Dante, 95; cited, 183 _n._, 198, 199.
Eochaid Airem, 122, 127.
Eochaid Glas Corpre, 149.
Epicurean school, influence of, in first century, 91.
Er, Vision of, 56 _sqq._, 59.
Eratosthenes, 88.
Erenach, the Irish, 40.
Eridu, 70.
Erigena, see ‘Joannes Scotus E.’
Erik Saga, 131.
Esdras, Vision of, in O. T. Apocrypha, 97, 182 _n._, 215 _n._; in N. T. Apocrypha, 98.
Etain, 122, 127.
Ethne, wife of Mider, 127; E. Taebfada, 143.
Fabian, Bishop of Rome, 45.
Failbhe, Abbot of Iona, 8.
Fand, 128-9.
Félire Oengusa, 174, 205 _n._
Fercertue, 126 _n._
Fermoy, Book of, cited, 136 _n._, 157 _n._
Ferry to Hades, 67.
Fidelis, Irish traveller, 114.
Fiery circles in Paradise, 30, 187; lakes, rivers, etc., of Otherworld, 36, 37, 96, 132, 133, 194; wall, 43, 153, 187, 194, 202.
Filid, Irish literary order, 117.
Filippo Argenti, 169 _n._
Finnachta Fledach, Árd-Rí of Ireland, accession, 14; relations with Adamnán, 13 _sqq._; and Boruma tribute, 14 _sqq._; mentioned in connection with emancipation of women, 45; death, 17.
Finn cycle, 133.
Firghil, Irish bishop of Salzburg, 6 _n._, 115.
Fis, class of Irish romances, 120; the Christian Fis, 165, 212; _Fis Adamnáin_, etc., see ‘Adamnán,’ Etc.; see also under ‘Vision.’
Fitzgerald, David, _Popular Tales of Ireland_, 153 _n._, 174 _n._
Fomorians, the, Chthonian powers, 121, 135 _n._
Food, miraculous, 126, 155-6, 208, 210.
Forgall Monach, 130.
Foucart, M. P., on the Greek mysteries, 52-5; on the Isis cult, 89 _n._
Four Masters, the, cited, 18.
Fravashi, the, 86, 183.
Frederick II., Emperor, and Petrus Hibernicus, 6 _n._; legend of disappearance of, 164 _n._
Friedel, Dr. V. H., joint editor of _La Vision de Tondale_, 212 _n._
Fursa, St., 166; Visions of, 167 _sqq._
Gardner, Prof. P., on the Greek mysteries, 53 _n._, 54, 92 _n._; on Greek sources of Christian eschatology, 92 _n._
Gelasius, 25.
Gilbert, Abbot of Louth, 234.
Giöll, Bridge of, 131.
Gisdubar, 69.
Good and evil, souls of mingled, fate of, 39, 72, 85, 112, 191, 201-2, 220-2.
Gorm and Bridge myth, 131.
Graal legend, parallels to Irish legends, 124 _n._, 131, 150, 154, 156, 184 _n._
Greece, visits to Otherworld, 49; visions of Otherworld, 56 _sqq._; Greece and Alexandria, 86 _sqq._; intercourse with Egypt, 89 _n._; philosophic schools under early Empire, 91; influence on early Christian eschatology, 92 _n._; Greek learning in Ireland, 115; Greeks in Ireland, _ibid._; traces in Irish tales, 151; and see ‘Elysium,’ ‘Tartarus,’ ‘Mysteries,’ ‘Hades,’ ‘Plato,’ ‘Plutarch,’ ‘Aristophanes.’
Gregory I., Pope and Saint; vision of Stephen, 110; of a soldier, 111; of a Spanish monk, 112.
Guide to Hades, 182; in _Book of Enoch_, 95; in _Vision of Esdras_, 98; in _Fis Adamnáin_, 29, 181-2, 195; in Irish legends, 121, 130, 167, 170, 214; in Continental legends, 230.
Hades, the Greek, 50; Virgilian, 66; Chaldæan, 70; Christian, 92 _n._
Haemgils, 233.
Hara-berezaiti, Mount, 71 _n._
Harrowing of Hell legend, 101.
Healy, Dr., _Ireland’s Ancient Schools and Scholars_, 4 _n._
Heaven, described: in the _Book of Enoch_, 96; in the _Fis Adamnáin_, 30 _sqq._, 183 _sqq._; in Irish legends, 158, 174, 223, 234; as a Christian Church, 34, 164, 184; the Seven Heavens, 35, 83, 84, 192; and see ‘Paradise.’
Hebrews, see ‘Jews.’
Hell, in the _Book of Enoch_, 95-6; Greek ideas in Christian, 109; _Apocalypse of Peter_, 105; _Paul_, 106; St. Gregory, 112; _Fis Adamnáin_, 38 _sqq._, 196 _sqq._; other Irish visions, 158, 170-1, 172-3, 209, 219 _sqq._, 233, 235; Continental legends, 231, 239; of Oriental religions, 226 _n._; as mouth of a monster, 215, 216, 235, 239; Northern and Southern conception contrasted, 200 _n._, 202, 228.
Hellenism, in Persia, 76 _sqq._; Syria, 68; Egypt, 87-9; Jewish schools, 68, 86-7.
Helmet of Irish Árd-Rí, 32 _n._, 188.
Henry of Saltrey, 234.
Herakles, visit to Hades, 49.
Hermas, Shepherd of, 101 _sqq._; anticipations of Dante, 103, 182 _n._
Hermits on islands, 154-7, 160, 191, 210, 211.
Hermödr and Bridge myth, 131.
Herodotus cited, 33 _n._, 87, 88 _n._, 151.
Hesiod, Elysium, 50 _n._; æons, 79 _n._; cited, 121 _n._
Hierarchies, nine celestial, 30, 185, 223-4.
Hilarius, Pope, reforms calendar, 9.
Homer, Elysium, 50; island Paradise, 121; _Odyssey_ cited, 152.
Horse-races of demons, 152.
Hull, Miss Eleanor, _Cuchullin Saga_, 130, 131.
Hyde, Dr. Douglas, _Literary History of Ireland_, 117 _n._, 128 _n._
Immanuel ben Salamone, 241 _n._
Imram, class of Irish romance, 120; adopts Christian eschatology, 146, 157, 164; Christian Imrama, 147, 150; modern Imrama, 212; of Bran, Maelduin, the Ui Corra, Snedgus and Mac Ríagla, St. Brendan, Tadg Mac Céin; see ‘Bran,’ etc.
Indian mythology, parallels in, 29 _n._
Inferno, see ‘Dante.’
Initiation, see ‘Mysteries.’
Interpolations, Christian, in Irish heroic tales, 145-9.
Iona, monastery founded by St. Colm Cille, 8; abbots of, 8; opposition to Adamnán’s reform, 10; apocryphal disputes with Adamnán, 22.
Ireland: Church in seventh century, 4; three orders of saints, 4; asceticism, 24; tribal organisation, 7, 15; political activity, 6; learning in, 5, 115; connections with Gaul, 113; with the East, 113-15; intercourse with Greeks, 115; Oriental type of monasticism, 114; pilgrimages to Egypt, 114; missionary activity, 5; Irish scholars abroad, 5, 115; Irish monastic foundations in foreign countries, 5, 166, 233 _n._
---- Social ranks and classes, 116 _n._; position of women, 18 _sqq._
---- Political constitution, 14, 116 _n._; the Mórdáil, 18.
---- The literary class, 116-18; the annals, authority of, 16, 17.
---- Romantic literature: classification of stories, 118-19; pagan elements, 119, 120; ethical ideas, 144, 145, 147-8; tolerance of clergy, 119, 209 _n._; clerical interpolations, 145-9; transition to Christianity, 146-7, 157, 164-5; possible borrowings from the Norse, 131, 152; from classics, 151-2; loss of natural beauty, 247; of music, 124, 139, 141, 159, 181, 189, 191, 247.
---- Interrupted development of Irish literature and modern revival, 247.
_Isaiah, Vision of_, 98.
Ishtâr, 69, 97.
Isis, cult of, in Græco-Roman world, 89 _n._; treatise on Isis and Osiris, 88.
Island Paradise, 123, 151, 153-4, 157, 159, 160, 162-3, 184 _n._, 210.
Israel, see ‘Jews.’
Jews, contact with Oriental religions during captivity, 68, 82; Persian mythology, 70; Hellenic influences, 68, 86-7; colonies in Asia and Alexandria, 86; Egyptian ideas, 87-9; Rabbinical legends, 84; spiritism, 81; eschatology, 89, 90, 191; Purgatorial theories, 90; influence on Christian conception of Paradise, 109.
Joannes Scotus Erigena, 6 _n._, 115.
John of Thessalonica, 107.
Jubinal, _La Légende latine de St. Brendaines_, 207 _n._
Jude, St., Epistle of, cited, 71, 94, 99.
Judgment: of individual on demise, 37, 38, 71, 106, 195; deferred till Last Judgment, 39, 40, 41, 191; Last, 31, 47, 72 _n._, 96; impatience of damned for, 43; intensification of bliss and woe after, 202.
Karshipta, mystical bird of Avesta, 72, 73, 81, 85, 189.
Labraid Luathlam-ar-Claideb, 128.
Lagny, monastery, founded by St. Fursa, 167.
Laisrén, St., Vision of, 169 _sqq._
Lanigan cited, 7 _n._
Lawrence, ed. of _Book of Enoch_, 95 _n._
Leanamhán Sidhe stories, 127, 136.
Lebor Brec, 27.
Lebor na g-Cert, 117 _n._
Lebor na h-Udri, 27, 122 _n._, 127 _n._
Lenormant, _Origines de l’Histoire_, cited, 69 _n._, 82.
Lerins, monastery of, 113.
Leuke, 50, 143.
_Lex innocentium_, 22.
_Lex talionis_, in punishments of Otherworld, 63, 105, 171, 231, 238.
Lia Fáil, 134, 187.
Liban, 128.
_Limbus infantium_, 172, 238; _Limbus patrum_, 172.
Lindus, temple of, initiation at, 56 _n._
Loeg, 128-9, 147.
Loingseach mac Oengusa, Árd-Rí, 18.
Lothair, King of Lombards and Dungal, 6 _n._
Lucan cited, 49, 229 _n._
Lucian cited, 108, 109, 151.
Lucifer, in _Fis Adamnáin_, 38; in Vision of Fursa, 167; in Vision of Tundale, 220.
Lucretius on Tartarus doctrine, 109.
Lug, Irish god, 121.
Lugh mac Cethlenn, dún of, 135, 183 _n._
Lying excluded from Otherworld, 141-2, 143.
Macbeth, parallel in Conn legend, 135.
Machutus, St., and whale, 208 _n._
Mac Conglinne, Vision of, 123.
Maelduin’s Curach, Voyage of, 120, 150 _sqq._
Magh Breg, 8; M. Mell, 152, 183, 187, 189; M. Mon, 125; M. Mór, 122, 148 _n._; M. Réin, 124.
Malachi, St., 25.
Malignant powers in Irish myth, 129, 130.
Malo, St., see ‘Machutus.’
Manannán mac Lír, 121, 123, 128, 143, 146, 147, 156; converted into the Devil, 208.
Mangan, J. C, quoted, 148 _n._
Marcus, author of _Vision of Tundale_, 212, 225.
Marianus Scotus, 6 _n._
Martyrs, precedence of, in Paradise, 39, 188.
Mary, B. V., Vision at death of, 9, 107, 181; in Paradise, 31, 185.
Median conquests, effects of, 70.
Megasthenes, possible borrowings from, 151.
Mercy, leaning of Irish divines towards, 201-2.
Meru, Mount, 81.
Metempsychosis, see ‘Rebirth.’
Meyer, Prof. Kuno, ed. of the _Cáin Adamnáin_, 18; of the _Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal_, 49 _n._, 122 _n._, 123 _n._; of the _Tochmarc Emere_, 130 _n._; of the _Echtra Nerai_, 132 _n._; of the _Baile Mongáin_, 140 _n._; of the _Vision of Laisrén_, 169; of _La Vision de Tondale_, 212 _n._; of the _Vision of Mac Conglinne_, 123 _n._
Michael, Archangel, 35, 95, 182, 195, 230.
Mider, Irish god, 121, 122, 123, 128, 148 _n._
Miller, Demon, 152-3, 162.
Milton cited, 173 _n._, 201, 203, 204.
Mithra cult in Roman Empire, 75 _n._
Moling, St., and Boruma tribute, 14, 15.
Mongán, 140 _n._, 147 _n._, 153.
Moore, Thomas, quoted, 159 _n._
Moran, Dr., _Ada Sancti Brendani_, 207 _n._
Mórdáil of Ireland, 18; Adamnán at, _ib._
Morgan, 136, 138.
Moses, contest between Michael and Satan for, 71.
Muirgheas mac Páidin ui Maoilchanaire, translator of _Visio Tundali_, 213 _n._
Mundus of Latin towns, 161 _n._
Murias, 122.
Music, Irish susceptibility to, 124, 139, 141, 159, 181, 189, 191, 247.
Musical cords to St. Peter’s vessel, 29.
Musical stones, 31, 125, 181, 187.
Mysteries, Greek, 51 _sqq._; origin, 52-3; Eleusinian, 51-2, 54-6; Orphic Pythagorean, 52-4; orgiastic, 55; connected with Demeter, 52; Dionysos, 59; Pythagoras, 52-3; benefits of initiation, 52, 58-60; moral teaching, 51-2, 54-6; doctrine of future life, 52 _sqq._; of rebirth, 54; survival of, 108.
Nature, Irish love of, 158-9, 247.
Neid, 126 _n._
Neo-Platonism and the East, 76 _sqq._; in interpretation of Greek myths, 51.
Nera, adventures of, 132.
Niamh Cinn Óir, 133.
Nicodemus, gospel of, 97, 101.
Norse, possible Irish loans from, 131, 152.
North, region of evil powers, 200.
Northumbria, Christianised from Ireland, 233 _n._
Numenius, 77.
Nutt, Mr. Alfred, _Essay on the Irish Vision of the Happy Otherworld and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth_, 49 _n._, 92 _n._, 119 _n._, 122 _n._, 123 _n._, 131 _n._, 150, 155, 162 _n._, 172 _n._; _Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail_, 124 _n._, 131 _n._, 150 _n._, 156 _n._; on the Greek and Irish Elysium, 49 _n._; on the Greek mysteries, 53 _n._, 59 _n._; on the Greek sources of Christian eschatology, 92 _n._; on the Phœnix legend, 155; on the date of the voyage of Snedgus and Mac Ríagla, 162 _n._; 5 _n._, 28.
Oath of Irish Kings, 21.
O’Curry, _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, 117 _n._, 122 _n._; _MS. Materials of Irish History_, 162 _n._
O’Donnells, the, of Tír Conaill, 7.
O’Donoghue, Rev. Denis, _Brendaniana_, 207 _n._, 208 _n._
Oengus Óg, 121, 122.
O’Flaherty, _Ogygia_, 14.
O’Grady, Dr. Standish Hayes, _Silva Gadelica_, 14, 15, 212 _n._
O’Hanlon, Very Rev. Canon, _Lives of the Irish Saints_, 4 _n._, 14, 18, 166 _n._
Oisín, 133.
Orpheus, 49, and see ‘Mysteries’; Orpheus myth in Ireland, 127.
Otherworld, visits to, in Greek myths, 49; Chaldæa, 69; in Irish traditions, 121, 133; Connla, 126; Cuchulainn, 127 _sqq._; Conn, 134 _sqq._; Árt, 138 _sqq._; Cormac, 139 _sqq._; and see ‘Vision,’ ‘Imram.’
---- Descriptions, Chaldæan, 69, 70, 193; Avestan, 71 _sqq._; Greek, 49 _sqq._; in _Book of Enoch_, 96; in _Apocalypse of Peter_, 105; in ancient Ireland, 122-6, 128-30, 133-5, 137-44; and see ‘Elysium,’ ‘Paradise,’ ‘Hell,’ ‘Heaven,’ ‘Purgatory.’
---- Orthodox character of the ecclesiastical legend, 109; of minor importance in the Western Church, 110.
Owen, Vision of, 234 _sqq._; Dante parallels, 235.
Ozanam, _Dante et la Philosophie catholique_, 229 _n._
Paradise, Hebrew ideas in Christian, 109; described in _Book of Enoch_, 96; _Vision of Esdras_, 98; _Revelation_, 100 _n._; _Apocalypse of Peter_, 105; by St. Gregory, 111; in _Fis Adamnáin_, 29, 30; in the Irish legendary, 157, 221, 233; Paradise of Birds, 211; Terrestrial Paradise in Irish legends, 153-4, 162-3, 210, 236; and see ‘Elysium,’ ‘Heaven.’
_Paradiso_, see ‘Dante.’
Parnell, Mr., and the return myth, 164 _n._
Paschal controversy, 9, 10, 25.
Patrick, St., 45, 113, 182 _n._, 223; pagan prophecy of his coming, 135; hymn of, 21.
Patrick’s Purgatory, St., 120, 225, 234 _sqq._; closed, 237; doubtful origin, 236; popularity of legend, 234, 237; influence on European literature, 237; Dante parallels, 235, 238.
Paul, St., Vision of, 29, 99; Revelation of, 106, 181; mediæval vision of, 202 _n._, 230 _sqq._; authority for Purgatory, 192 _n._; guide to the Otherworld, 182 _n._
Pavia, University founded by Dungal, 6 _n._
Perceval (Peredur) romances, parallels to Irish legends, 131, 150, 154, 156, 184 _n._
Persian eschatology, see ‘Avesta.’
Peter, St., Vision of, 28, 181; on purification of the world by fire, 99; Apocalypse of, 105; authority for Purgatory, 192; guide to the Otherworld, 182 _n._
Peter, Spanish monk, Vision of, 111.
Petrus Hibernicus, 6 _n._
Philip, Roman Emperor, 45, 46 _n._
Philo Judæus, 76 _sqq._
Phœnix legend, 85, 154-5, 189.
Pillar on enchanted island, 151, 160, 210.
Pindar on Elysium, 50 _n._; cited, 121 _n._
Plato and the Otherworld legend, 56; Vision of Er, 56 _sqq._, 111; eschatology of, 57-8; on the mysteries, 58; rebirth, 57-8.
Plutarch, Vision of Thespesios, 60 _sqq._, 111, 118 _n._, 233 _n._; eschatology of, 61 _sqq._; the mysteries, 108; Tartarus, 109; early Neo-Platonist, 77; _On Isis and Osiris_, 88.
Porter of Hades, 35, 69, 84, 193.
Promise, sacredness of, in Ireland, 140.
Psychopompos, see ‘Guide to Otherworld.’
Ptolemy I., 88; Philadelphia, _ib._; Euergetes, _ib._
Pûitika sea, 72, 85, 184.
Pundgel, Australian divine bird, 73 _n._
Punishments in Otherworld, see ‘Hell,’ ‘Tartarus’; Purgatorial, see ‘Purgatory’; temporary, 35, 39, 40, 41, 49, 201-2; classified, 40 _sqq._, 105, 171, 174, 199 _sqq._, 231; respited periodically, 43, 160, 161, 232.
Purgatory: idea in Plato, 57; in Plutarch, 61-4; theories of the Rabbis, 90, 193-4; in _Book of Enoch_, 194; development in the early Church, 192-4; in the _Fis Adamnáin_, 36, 178-9, 193-4; in Irish legends, 160, 215 _sqq._, 225, 227, 233, 235; in the _Vision of Alberic_, 239; St. Patrick’s, see ‘Patrick’s Purgatory, St.’
Pythagoras and the mysteries, 52-3.
Rabbis, see ‘Jews.’
Ragozin, M. de, _Chaldæa_, cited, 69 _n._; _Media_ cited, 71 _n._
Ramsay, Sir W. M., on the Greek mysteries, 55-6.
Raphoe, Mórdáil at, 18.
Rebirth doctrine, in Plato, 54, 57-8; Plutarch, 62, 64; Virgil, 65; rejected by the Persians, 80; Chaldæans, _ib._; Egyptians, 93; Jews, 92-3.
Reeves, Bishop, ed. Adamnán’s _Life of St. Columba_, 4 _n._; cited, 7 _n._, 11.
Renouf, M. Le Page, on the Egyptian theory of the future life, 89 _n._, 93.
Respite, periodical, of the damned, 43, 160, 161, 232.
Return myth of departed heroes, 163.
Revelation, Book of, 85, 98 _n._, 99, 100 _n._, 163 _n._, 183, 184, 190 _n._, 195, 198, 205.
Rhapsodical description of Paradise, 43, 73, 174, 205-6, 210.
Rhys, Professor, on Bran, 123 _n._
Rivers of Hell, 43, 151; four, 43, 204.
Rohde, Professor, on the Greek mysteries, 53.
Ronán, 7.
Ronat, 7, 20.
Ross, men of, 162-3, 191.
Ruadán, St., 18, 24.
Sabbatarianism in early Irish Church, 161.
Saints, Land of, in _Fis Adamnáin_, 30; three orders of Irish, see ‘Ireland.’
Saltair na Rann cited, 114.
Samoan ten Heavens, 83.
Satan, in _Fis Adamnáin_, 38; in Vision of Fursa, 167; in Vision of Tundale, 220; in Voyage of St. Brendan, 208.
Sayce, Professor, on Chaldæan eschatology, 70 _n._, 72 _n._, 82.
Scathach, realm of, 130.
Scél Lái Brátha, 171, 205 _n._
Schröder, _Sanct Brandan_, 207 _n._
Scone, stone of, 134.
Sedulius, 6 _n._
Segda Saerlabrad, 137-8, 144-5.
Segine, Abbot of Iona, 8.
Seneca on Tartarus doctrine, 109.
Seppelli, Signor, trans. Immanuel ben Salamone, 242 _n._
Sereth, 7.
_Serglige Conchulaind_, 127 _sqq._
Seth, journey to Paradise, 84, 97.
Seven, favourite mystic number, 83; Heavens, 35, 83, 84, 192; walls of Celestial City, 33, 185; of Ecbatana, 33; Hells of Rabbis, 90, 193; Chaldæan Spirits of Earth, 70, 81; Persian Magnificent Deities, 81; Amesha Spentas, 78, 81; Philonic emanations, 81; Archangels, 84.
Shakespeare cited, 201.
Shammai, school of, 90, 194.
Sheol, 96, 191.
Shepherd of Hermas, see ‘Hermas.’
Sibylline books, 101.
Sibyls, medium of revelation, 67, 104.
Silvester, Pope, 45.
Sinbad, 151, 208 _n._
Sliabh Daidche, 208.
Snedgus and Mac Ríagla, 147, 162 _sqq._, 184 _n._
Soldier, St. Gregory’s vision of a, 111.
Soleus, see ‘Thespesios.’
_Somnium Scipionis_, 64, 229 _n._
Sorrows, two, of Heaven, 46, 174, 205.
Stephen, Vision of, 110.
Stoics and early Empire, 91; destruction of world by fire, 91 _n._
Stones, vocal and musical, 31, 125, 135, 181, 187-8.
Stokes, Dr. G. T., _Ireland and the Celtic Church_, 114 _n._, 115.
---- Dr. Whitley, editor of _Fis Adamnáin_, 25, 32 _n._, 35 _n._, 40 _n._, 41 _n._, 42 _n._, 44 _n._, 47 _n._, 188 _n._, 196 _n._; on date of, 25; _Saltair na Rann_, 114 _n._; _Adventures of Cormac_, 139 _n._; _The Irish Ordeals_, etc., 120 _n._; _Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach_, 151 _n._; _Voyage of the Sons of Ua Corra_, 157 _n._; _Imrum Snedghusa agus Mic Ríagla_, 162 _n._; _A Middle Irish Homily_, 173 _n._; Latin life of St. Brendan, 207 _n._, 210 _n._
Sunday respite of the damned, 43, 160, 161, 231.
Swallowing of guilty by demons, 38, 39, 89, 195-6, 198, 216, 218, 220, 228, 231, 235.
Syria, Hellenism in, 68; Jewish colonies, 86; and Irish Church, 113-15.
Tadg mac Céin, adventures of, 120, 148 _n._, 212 _n._
Táin Bo Aingen, 132.
Tara, Synod of, 18; abandonment of, _ib._
Tartarus, in Plato, 57; Aristophanes, 59; Plutarch, 62; Virgil, 65-6; under Roman Empire, 109; contribution to Christian Hell, _ib._; none in Pagan Ireland, 129; kindred conceptions, 129, 130, 139.
Tertullian, precedence awarded to martyrs, 188.
Tethra, god of Irish Underworld, 121, 126, 143.
Theophilus, Sergius, and Hyginus, voyage of, 184 _n._
Theseus, 49.
Thespesios, Vision of, 60 _sqq._
Throne of Deity, 31, 96, 158, 183 _sqq._; parallels in myths of Chaldæa, 70; Ireland, 122, 137, 183.
Tigernach cited, 7 _n._, 18.
Timotheus of Alexandria, 88.
Tinne, 7, 29.
Tír Aedha, 7 _n._
Tír na n-óg, 133, 136; Tír Tairngire, 123 _sqq._, 126, 136, 139, 141, 142, 144, 148, 210.
Tonsure, Irish, 9.
Torach, cook of, 155.
Tradition, historical value of Irish, 16, 17.
_Transitus Mariæ_, 107.
Tree of Life, 46, 70, 75, 84, 96, 98, 157, 163, 174, 179, 184, 189, 190 _n._, 224; parallels in Irish myth, 124, 128, 134, 137, 140, 154-5, 190.
Tree, public, in Ireland, 134; in the Italian republics, 135 _n._
Trinity, the, in mediæval visions, 188; in Irish visions, 37, 167, 188.
Trionfo del Vaglio, Il, cited, 153.
Tuatha Dé Danann, 122, 126, 127, 129, 134, 136, 183 _n._
Tuathal Techtmar, 14.
Tundale, Vision of, 212 _sqq._; influence on foreign literature, 224; compared with _Fis Adamnáin_, 225; with Dante, 225-9.
Turpin, Archbishop, 146 _n._
Ua Corra, Voyage of the sons of, 120, 147, 157 _sqq._, 183.
Ui Néill, the, 15.
Vara of Yima, 72, 73, 85, 144, 189; suggested derivation from Deluge tradition, 78 _n._
Varuna and Tethra, 121 _n._
Veil before the Throne, 30, 187; over mystical islands, 152, 160, 187, 210.
Vendîdâd cited, 71 _n._, 72 _n._, 73 _n._, 74, 76 _n._, 79 _n._, 80.
Victor, St. Patrick’s angel, 182 _n._
Virgil and the vision of the Otherworld, 48, 64 _sqq._; descriptions, 65 _sqq._; follows received authorities, 65; agreement with Aristophanes, _ib._; eclecticism, 66; artistic point of view, 66; received as prophet by the Church, 67; influence on development of the legend, _ib._; on Dante, _ib._; cited, 152, 173 _n._, 194, 203 _n._, 209 _n._
Vision of Otherworld, wide diffusion of the legend, 1 _sqq._; in Greece, 56 _sqq._, 60 _sqq._; Rome, 48, 64 _sqq._; lines of development, 3, 48; popularity with post-captivity Jews, 94; in early Church, 98 _sqq._; survival in homilies, folk-tales, etc., 111, 114; special developments in Ireland, 23, 121; Irish acquaintance with earlier visions, 116; Irish vision-writers on the Continent, 206-7; their influence on European literature, 224, 242 _sqq._; on Dante, 243-5; tendency to increase in horror, 225-6; popularity in later Middle Ages, 229, 240; diminished importance and increased number, 239 _sqq._
Visions of Adamnán, Er, Thespesios, Enoch, Esdras, Apostles, Hermas, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Colm Cille, St. Fursa, St. Laisrén, Tundale, Drihthelm, Owen, Alberic, see ‘Adamnán,’ etc.
Vohu Mano and Neo-Platonic Logos, 78 _n._
Wagner, A., editor of Vision of Tundale, 213 _n._
Waters of Life, 69, 84, 98, 190 _n._
West, abode of the dead, 29, 96.
Whale taken for island, 208.
Windisch, Professor, editor of _Fis Adamnáin_, 27, 34 _n._, 47 _n._; date of _F. A._, 25; ed. _Serglige Conchulaind_, 127 _n._
Women, status of, in Ireland, 19; military service, 18-20; emancipation, 18, 20-23; liability for crimes, 21.
World-Sea, 72, 85.
Wright, _St. Patrick’s Purgatory_, 229 _n._
Yama, Indian god of dead, 29 _n._, 74, 121.
Yehl, divine bird of Thlinkeets, 73 _n._
Yima, Persian god of dead, 72 _sqq._, 85, 121.
Zimmer, Professor, on date of the Voyage of Maelduin’s Curach, 150, 157 _n._
Zoroastrianism, see ‘Avesta.’
Zu, Babylonian culture-bird, 73 _n._
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