Macai.istkk — Temair Bret/ : Remain* and Tratlitions of Tara. 333 



follows iii PD : hit e a anmand .i. ildel, etc. ; ''these are their uaiues (i.e. thn 

 names of the stones), Moel," etc. The personalities of the druids had passed 

 into the stones erected over them ; in fact, these stones are the druids, and 

 as such they help to initiate the rightful king. 



Moel, Blocc, and Bluicne became the stock names for druids at Temair; 

 so important were the stones associated with them. They appear in the tale 

 Buile an Scdil, 1 as the persons who interpreted the scream of Fal to Conn 

 Cet-chathach. And they appear in the story of St. Patrick's contention with 

 druids of king Loeguire. For surely it is clear that 



LOCHEU ET LUCETMAEL, 



the names of the two druids with which the saint had to deal, are simply 



corruptions of 



(b)luicne et (b)locc et mael, 



the same names, in the reverse order. 2 



But how did the stones open or close before the candidate ? To this 

 question there is but one possible answer. The stones were set close 

 together — though we need not take anjaiedde la hit re the assertion that they 

 were normally so close together that " only the edge of a hand could pass 

 between them " 3 — and the candidate had to squeeze between them. I f he 

 failed to do so, he was rejected. 



Similar rites of squeezing through a narrow space — a split tree, a hole in 

 the ground, an opening in a rock, or a space between two objects set close 

 together — are found in many parts of the world. The custom is followed for 

 a variety of purposes : as a curative act. in cases of disease ; as a test of 

 legitimacy of birth;'. or, as in the present case, as a test of worthiness for 

 some privilege. The rite lias ramifications which here we cannot follow ; 

 they have been studied by Henri Gaidoz in a monograph. 5 The nearest 

 analogue to the Temair rite is to lie seen in a mosque at Jerusalem, and 



Kaineus, crushed into the earth by Centaurs under a heap of fig-branches. Indeed the 

 representation of the scene on the broken frieze of the Theseion (Bauweistcr, Deiikm S/ei 

 fig. 186S) seems to show the Centaurs pressing him into the ground under the weight 

 of a great stone. The burial of the druids might have taken place to Becure luck, at the 

 original establishment of the sanctuary : cf. the well-known Iona story. 



1 O'Curry, MS. Materials, p. 618. 



'-' For these druids see Tripartite Life, p. -,','k Moel was also the none of a dniid at 

 Cruachu ; ibid., p. 92. '■> Erin, vi, 134. 



* See Doubdan, T.e voyage de la Terre Sainte (Paris, 1666 . p. .">7. or Morison, Relation 

 histtiritjue d'ltn voyage inmvellement /nil an Matt tie Siixii et <ni Jerii.«<i, m Toul, 1704, 

 p 347, for a rite of this kind observed ill the seventeenth century at the Chinch of the 

 Holy Sepulchre, as a test of legitimacy. For similar rites carried out For other purpi Bi J, 

 reference may be made to the brochure by Gaidoz, mentioned in the following footnote. 



5 {7n vieitx rite tnedicale. Opuscule offert <i Anahile <te Barlhrlemy, Paris. 18'JL'. 



