NA TURE 



361 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1888. 



CEL TIC HE A THEN DOM. 



The Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by 

 Celtic Heathendom. The Hibbert Lectures for 1887. By 

 J. Rhys. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1888.) 



PROF. RHYS has made an important contribution 

 in this volume, if not to the development of 

 religion in general, at all events to the study of Indo- 

 European mythology. Almost for the first time, the 

 religious legends of the Kelts have been subjected to 

 scientific treatment, and the resources of scientific 

 philology have been called in to explain them. The 

 Keltic languages and mythology have long been a happy 

 hunting-ground for the untrained theorist and charlatan : 

 in the Hibbert Lectures for 1887 we find at last etymo- 

 logies which can be trusted, and a method of investigation 

 which alone can lead to sound results. 



The method employed by Prof. Rhys is the compara- 

 tive method of science. The literature of the Keltic 

 nations does not begin until after the triumph of 

 Christianity ; and apart from a few Gaulish inscriptions, 

 and the questionable assertions of Latin or Greek writers, 

 our knowledge of Keltic paganism must be derived from 

 such traces of it as we may detect in a later and hostile 

 literature. These traces consist for the most part of the 

 myths and legends preserved in Irish manuscripts or 

 Welsh romances. 



By comparing the Irish and Welsh legends one 

 with another, and analyzing the primitive meaning 

 of the proper names round which they centre, Prof. 

 Rhys has attempted to recover their original form 

 and signification, verifying his conclusions not only 

 by an appeal to etymology, but also, wherever it is 

 possible, to the evidence of the Gaulish texts. Without 

 doubt, a considerable number of his conclusions are 

 merely hypothetical, and in some cases his interpretations 

 depend on the exercise of the same Keltic imagination 

 as that which inspired the old story-tellers, but, on the 

 whole, he has laid a broad and solid foundation of fact, 

 which must be the starting-point of all future researches 

 in the same field. He will himself be the first to acknow- 

 ledge the tentative and theoretical character of much of 

 his work ; indeed, the readiness with which he admits in 

 his appendix that he has changed his opinion in regard 

 to certain questions is a witness to his possession of the 

 true scientific spirit, which is always open to conviction. 



The lectures appropriately begin with an account of 

 Gaulish religion, so far as it can be gathered from the 

 scanty evidence of the monuments. Then follow chapters 

 on the Zeus of the insular Kelts, as well as on the Culture- 

 hero and on the Sun-hero, the two latter of whom Prof. 

 Rhys endeavours to keep apart, though the attempt does 

 not seem to me to be more successful than it has been in 

 the case of other mythologies. The suggestion, indeed, 

 that the Keltic Culture-hero may have been a deified 

 man, like the Norse Woden, the Greek Prometheus, or the 

 Indian Indra, has little in its favour ; at all events, if 

 Inclra or Prometheus were of human origin, the Sun-god 

 must have been of human origin also. The myths told 

 Vol. xxxviii.— No. 981. 



about " the Culture-hero " are precisely similar in charac- 

 ter to those told about " the Sun-hero." 



The last lecture is occupied with those figures of Keltic 

 mythology which are not directly connected with either the 

 beginnings of civilization or the adventures of the solar 

 orb. Here Prof. Rhys has done important service for the 

 historian by sweeping away the foundations on which the 

 so-called early history of Ireland has been built. The 

 races who have been supposed to have successively 

 effected a settlement in the island belonged to the world 

 of mythology. The Tuatha de Danann, or "Tribes of the 

 goddess Danu," were long remembered to have been the 

 fairies; the Fomorians, or "submarine" monsters, were 

 supernatural beings whose home was beneath the sea ; 

 and a human ancestry is denied even to the Fir-bolgs or 

 " Men of the Bag." I am not sure that Prof. Rhys does 

 not sometimes go too far in refusing an historical character 

 to the personages and events recorded in Keltic tradition ; 

 the recent revelations of early Greek archaeology are a 

 useful warning in this respect, and the Keltic Professor 

 himself is obliged to admit that by the side of the 

 mythical Emrys and Vortigern there were an historical 

 Ambrosius and an historical Vortigern. A story must 

 have a setting in time and place, and the internecine 

 quarrels of the lively Kelt afforded frequent opportunities 

 for attaching an old story to the heroes and circumstances 

 of the day. It is not so many years ago since Atreus and 

 Agamemnon were relegated to the domains of mythology ; 

 yet we now know, from archaeological exploration, that 

 the legends in which they figured were based on 

 historical fact. 



In a book so rich in new ideas and information it is 

 difficult to select anything for special notice. Bearers of 

 the name of Owen, however, will be interested by finding 

 it traced back to the Gaulish agricultural god Esus, 

 whose name is connected by Prof. Rhys with the Norse 

 dss, " a god," and the Professor is to be congratulated on 

 his discovery of the origin of King Lud, the Lot of the 

 Arthurian romances. Lud is the Welsh Lludd, in Old 

 Welsh Lodens, who bears the title of Lludd Llawereint > 

 or " Lud of the Silver Hand." The initial sound of Lludd, 

 however, is due to that of the epithet so constantly 

 applied to him, the primitive form of the name having 

 been Nudd, which appears in the Latin inscriptions of 

 Lydney as Nodens or Nudens, a sort of cross between the 

 Roman Mars and Neptune. Nodens, again, was the 

 Irish Sky-god, " Nuada of the Silver Hand," and a myth 

 was current which explained the origin of the title. 



Equally worthy of notice is what Prof. Rhys has to tell 

 us about " the nine-day week" of the ancient Kelts. He 

 shows that like the Latins they made use of a week of 

 nine nights and eight days, and he points out that traces 

 of a similar mode of reckoning time are to be found in 

 Norse literature. Whether he is right in ascribing the 

 origin of such a week to a habit of counting the fingers of 

 one hand admits of question, and I do not see how the 

 Irish divinity Maine who presided over the day of the 

 week can be the Welsh Menyw, if, as we are told, Maine 

 owes his origin to secht-main, itself borrowed from the 

 Latin septinuvia or seven-day week. Prof. Rhys believes 

 that he has found a further resemblance between the 

 calendar of the primitive Kelts and Scandinavians, in the 

 fact that the year in both cases began at the end of the 



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