Part 21

Chapter 211,318 wordsPublic domain

_Pages 199-203._ This section, slightly adapted, is from an unpublished book, in gradual preparation, entitled _The Chronicles of the Sìdhe_.

_Page 225. The Culdees._ Though I have alluded in the text to the probable meaning of a word that has perplexed many people, I add this note as I have just come upon another theoretical statement about the Culdees as though they were an oriental race or sect. The writer evidently thinks they are the same as Chaldæans, and builds a startlingly unscientific theory on that assumption. In all probability the word is simply _Cille-Dè_, _i.e._, [the man of the] Cell of God--_Cille_ being Cell, a Church--and so a Cille-Dè man would be "man of God," a monk, a cleric. A much more puzzling problem obtains in the apparent traces of Buddha-worship in the Hebrides. It may or may not be of much account that the author of _Lewisiana_ "admits reluctantly" that "we must accept the possibility of a Buddhist race passing north of Ireland." I have not seen _Lewisiana_ for some years, and cannot recall on what grounds the author arrives at his conclusion. But from my notes on the subject I see that M. Coquebert-Montbret, in the _Soc. des Antiquaires de_ _France_, argues at great length that the Asiatic Buddhist missionaries who penetrated to Western Europe, reached Ireland and Scotland. He asks if the ancient Gaelic Deity named _Budd_ or _Budwas_ be not _Buddh_ (Buddha). Another French antiquary avers that the Druids were "an order of Eastern priests adoring Buddwas." Some light on the problem is thrown by the fact that the Gaulo-Celtic museum in St. Germain is an ancient Celtic "god"--the fourth in kind that has been found--with its legs crossed after the manner of the Indian Buddha. It is more interesting still to note that in the Hebrides spirits are sometimes called _Boduchas_ or _Buddachs_, and that the same word is (or used to be) applied to heads of families, as the Master.

_Pages 242, 248._ These two sections, rearranged, and in part rewritten, are excerpted from what I wrote in Iona, some five years ago, for a preface to _The Sin-Eater_.

_Page 256._ In its original form this was written about a book of great interest and beauty, _The Shadow of Arvor: Legendary Romances of Brittany_. Translated and retold by Edith Wingate Rinder.

_Arvor (or Armor_) is one of the bardic equivalents of _Armorica_, as Brittany is called in many old tales. The name means the Sea-Washed Land, _Vor_ or _Mor_ being Breton for "sea," as in the famous region _Morbihan_ the Little Sea. Neither the Bretons for their Cymric kindred, however, call Brittany _Arvor_, or the Latinised _Armorica_. Arvor is the poetic name of a portion of Basse Bretagne only. Bretons call Brittany _Breiz_, and their language _Brezoned_, and themselves _Breiziaded_ (singular _Breiziad_)--as they keep to the French differentiation of _Bretagne_ and _Grande Bretagne_ in _Bro-Zaos_, the Saxon-Land, as they speak of France (beyond Brittany), as _Bro-chall_, the Land of Gaul. In Gaelic I think Brittany is always spoken of as _Breatunn-Beag_, Little Britain. The Welsh call the country, its people, and language, _Llydaw_, _Llydawiaid_, _Llydawaeg_.

F. M.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

By Mrs. William Sharp

The first edition of _The Divine Adventure: Iona: By Sundown Shores_ was published in 1900 by Messrs. Chapman and Hall. The Titular Essay (since revised) appeared first in _The Fortnightly Review_ for November and December, 1899. A large portion of "Iona" (though in different sequence) appeared also in _The Fortnightly_, March and April, 1900. Both "spiritual histories" were published separately in book form in America by Mr. T. Mosher; "Iona," curtailed and rearranged under the title of "The Isle of Dreams," in 1905. The Essay "Celtic" in its original form, first printed in _The Contemporary Review_, will now be found, revised and materially added to, in _The Winged Destiny_. In this Uniform Edition of the writings of "Fiona Macleod" (William Sharp) the following stories, etc., have been transferred to the present volume: "The White Fever" and "The Smoothing of the Hand" from _The Sin-Eater_; "The White Heron" which relates to the earlier story of Mary Maclean in _Pharais_, is from _The Dominion of Dreams_, and in its earliest version appeared with illustrations in the Christmas number of _Harper_ in 1898. "A Dream" appeared first in the _Theosophical Review_ of September, 1904. Finally I have added to this volume the latter portion and some detached fragments from _Green Fire_, a Romance by "Fiona Macleod" dealing with Brittany and the Hebrid Isles and published in 1896 by Messrs. A. Constable, and in America by Messrs. Harper Bros. But William Sharp considered that the book suffered from grave defects of design and construction and decided that, when out of print, it should not be republished. "The Herdsman," however, is--as he stated in a note to the first Edition of _The Dominion of Dreams_, "a re-written and materially altered version of the Hebridean part of _Green Fire_ of which book it is all I care to preserve." Nevertheless, in accordance with the wishes of several friends, I have very willingly put together a series of detached fragments from the book and placed them beside "The Herdsman" as, in our opinion equally worthy of preservation, since the author's prohibition precludes the possibility of reprinting the book in its entirety.

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I. PHARAIS: THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS II. THE SIN EATER; THE WASHER OF THE FORD AND OTHER LEGENDARY MORALITIES III. THE DOMINION OF DREAMS: UNDER THE DARK STAR IV. THE DIVINE ADVENTURE: IONA: STUDIES IN SPIRITUAL HISTORY V. THE WINGED DESTINY: STUDIES IN THE SPIRITUAL HISTORY OF THE GAEL VI. THE SILENCE OF AMOR: WHERE THE FOREST MURMURS VII. POEMS AND DRAMAS

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