The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries

'During all these centuries the Celt has kept in his heart some affinity with the mighty beings ruling in the Unseen, once so evident to the heroic races who preceded him. His l...

'If all things which partook of life were to die, and after they were dead remained in the form of death, and did not come to life again, all would at last die, and nothing woul...

The Celtic Fairy-Faith as part of a World-wide Animism--Shaping Influence of Social Psychology--Smallness of Elvish Spirits and Fairies, according to Ethnology, Animism, and Occ...

'As he spoke, he paused before a great mound grown over with trees, and around it silver clear in the moonlight were immense stones piled, the remains of an original circle, and...

'Many go to the Tir-na-nog in sleep, and some are said to have remained there, and only a vacant form is left behind without the light in the eyes which marks the presence of a...

The popular opinion that dreams are nonsense is quite overthrown by definite psychological facts. When during sleep our sensory organs are exposed to external irritants the impr...

'So firm was the hold which the ethnic gods of Ireland had taken upon the imagination and spiritual sensibilities of our ancestors that even the monks and christianized bards ne...

'On the one hand we have the man Arthur, whose position we have tried to define, and on the other a greater Arthur, a more colossal figure, of which we have, so to speak, but a...

'It seems as if Ossian's was a premature return. To-day he might find comrades come back from Tir-na-nog for the uplifting of their race. Perhaps to many a young spirit standing...

The Extension of the Terms Fairy and Fairyland--The Real Man as an Invisible Force acting through a Body-Conductor-- A Psychical Organ essential for Memory--Pre-existence a Scie...

'In the Beauty of the World lies the ultimate redemption of our mortality. When we shall become at one with nature in a sense profounder even than the poetic imaginings of most...

'The cult of forests, of fountains, and of stones is to be explained by that primitive naturalism which all the Church Councils held in Brittany united to proscribe.'--ERNEST RE...

One of the chief objects of this chapter is to show that the Re-birth Doctrine of the Celts, like most beliefs bound up with the Fairy-Faith, still survives; thus further provin...

'The Purgatory of St. Patrick became the framework of another series of tales, embodying the Celtic ideas concerning the other life and its different states. Perhaps the profoun...

[605] Using as a basis the data of Professor Sidgwick's Committee and the results earlier obtained by Gurney, Myers, and Podmore (see _Phantasms of the Living_), Mr. William McD...

or unknown quantity of the Fairy-Faith, cannot at the present time be satisfactorily explained by science: (1) Collective hallucinations and veridical hallucinations; (2) object...

'Puzzling and weird occurrences have been vouched for among all nations and in every age. It is possible to relegate a good many asserted occurrences to the domain of superstiti...

In chapter iii we examined anthropologically the modern; and (both there and in parts of chapters following) the historical and ancient belief in fairies in Celtic countries, an...

Inadequacy of Pygmy Theory--According to the Theories concerning Divine Images and Fetishes, Gods, Daemons, and Ancestral Spirits haunt Megaliths--Megaliths are religious and fu...

Method of Presentation--The Logical Verdict--Trustworthiness of Legends--The Fairy-Faith held by the highly educated Celt as well as by the Celtic Peasant--The Evidence is compl...

The God Arthur and the Hero Arthur--Sevenfold Evidence to show Arthur as an Incarnate Fairy King--Lancelot the Foster-son of a Fairy Woman--Galahad, the Offspring of Lancelot an...

The Celtic Fairy-Faith as Part of a World-wide Animism-- Shaping Influence of Social Psychology--Smallness of Elvish Spirits and Fairies, according to Ethnology, Animism, and Oc...

Re-birth and Otherworld--As a Christian Doctrine--General Historical Survey--According to the Barddas MSS.; according to Ancient and Modern Authorities--Re-incarnation of the Tu...

The Goddess Dana and the Modern Cult of St. Brigit--The Tuatha De Danann or _Sidhe_ conquered by the Sons of Mil-- But Irish Seers still see the _Sidhe_--Old Irish Manuscripts f...

Method of Examination: Exoteric and Esoteric aspects--The X-quantity--Scientific attitudes toward the Animistic Hypothesis: Materialistic Theory; Pathological Theory; Delusion a...

General Ideas of the Otherworld; its Location; its Subjectivity; its Names; its Extent; Tethra one of its kings--The Silver Branch and the Golden Bough; and Initiations--The Oth...

Lough Derg a Sacred Lake originally--Purgatorial Rites as Christianized Survivals of Ancient Celtic Rites--Purgatory as Fairyland--Purgatorial Rites parallel to Pagan Initiation...

Edicts against Pagan Cults--Cult of Sacred Waters and its Absorption by Christianity--Celtic Water Divinities--Druidic Influence on Fairy-Faith--Cult of Sacred Trees--Cult of Fa...