380 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



comprehension of the rites which he describes. Let us consider these 

 initiatory rites in order, and see what we can make of them in the light of 

 modern anthropological knowledge. 



The horse-test cannot in' dissociated from the most interesting account of 

 the inauguration of the chieftains .if Cenel Conaill described by Giraldus 

 < lambrensis, 1 t>> the righteous indignation of Keating and other worthy souls. 

 Peace be with them — it was simply impossible for Giraldus, with the limited 

 knowledge of his time, to invent %o charmingly complete an account of a 

 savage totemistic initiatory rite. A white mare was led to t lie place of 

 inauguration : the candidate entered en all-fours — in fact, he pretended to be 

 a horse as the kangaroo and emu and witehettv-grub totem groups of 

 Australia pretend on occasion to be kangaroos, and so forth, in action as in 

 name. The man- was then killed, ami the chieftain- elect bathed in its broth, 

 while he and !r- people partook of a Bolemn lra-| of its flesh. Nothing could 

 more clearly show that Cenll Conaill was a tribe with a horse-totem, and that 

 the chieftain of the trior was on his initiation, admitted, as we may express 

 it, to " horse-ship." 1 We need not, perhaps infer that the rile was practised in 

 its pristine perfection at the late date at which Giraldus wrote, even though 

 la- reports it as contemporary. But if not, he must have had acceBS to some 

 authoritative literary description of the custom, descended from the time at 

 which it was in use. That it should have been an invention is a sheer 

 impossibility. 



! email-, the king began with some kind of encounter with horses. 



Hut what was the nit hi t- of this encounter? I'he description which we 



worn down to the low. .],. terras ; all that we are told 



is that if fo and to us obscure) the candidate was not to be 



king of Teinair, the "horses would spring at him " (concliglis iitd hichft 



Certain analogies presented by primitive Greek rib ._ < thai in the 



final form of the ceremony it was rather the king who sprang at the 



horses. M Salomon Reinach, in his paper on Hippolytus, has argued 



persuasively that the legend of the virtuous youth torn in pieces by his hot 



has arisen n ge rite in which it was the horses thai were torn in 



ally n.iiv. Lynch, the author •■{ Cambren u Eyeraus, after 



expending himself in a denunciation oi the ahamelessness "i Giraldus i"i reporting tins 

 ritual, gives his who timic 



"'"/• i I then qu nples of parallel rites which 



afforded the b ufinnation of Giraldus available in the literature al his dis- 



-I. Could he have lived to read some modern compilations i practices, it is 



to be feared that he would have had to strike out the ■•■■ < fotda 



1 HippolyU in Quite*, Mythu, el Religions, ii 



