396 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



One of the recorded examples of the European sun-dance is of very great 



importance in the present connexion. I refer to the ceremony of the college 



of priestesses on the islai. - -.. which has been already mentioned as the 



probable prototype of the pag - iblishinent at Kildare. In a familiar 



--age, Pomponius Mela describes this island as the seat of a company of 



nine pri . • who could raise storms, transform themselves into 



animals, cure diseases, and foretell the future — who had. in fact, all the stock 

 accoiuplishn.- - XI. Salomon Reinacb, indeed, in one of his 



singularly in I - a ared to demonstate that Mela or, 



ralber, the unknown authority on whom lie bases his account, is untrust- 

 rthy, and that Sena and i. - - had no real existence : partly on 



the ground that there is no other evidence for female ministrants in Celtic 

 religion, and partly 1 - ,e island is too evidently reminiscent of Cir» - 

 Isle of Aeaea. If- hat the whole Btoiyof the Sena priestesses was 



invented by Borne romancer, who sought to bring Homer's fancy into the realms 

 of reality. But, as to the first objection, we need not assume that (he 

 pri-- they may have been the survivals of a pre-Celtic 



cult: and even if they ■, . ,,f the fan-drtit is not bo foreign t" 



I ! !;•• ii : i- __ • As to the other objection, it would 

 be i .sonable . far from Sena being founded on Aeaea, 



Aeaea, the island of the dangfal ! ern sea, may on the 



the island of the Sun-pries the western 



sea. We might even gofartlv ting the name Circe etymologic-ally 



with ki'xAoc . itioii of circle, or. more 



accurately pi spiritual _ eived of as being 



la Putting Homer back to the very beginning 

 •-. the ea: lenty of 



time for tin- _ Sena and its priestessec 



the shores of the Ai . it would not havt B tner to liave 



realized its lity as a |ue setting for the troubles of Odysseus, 



Bir Ifela - - - S rabo tells us that 



im; XI<la ]■ daily life and duties of the priestesses — their 



wind-ra- . _ and disease-he;-. . Strabo records what 



happened on t Ik :. He calls the women " Samnites," 



discuss ; s there can hardly be 

 any doubt that the ind and the same people are intended. On a 



certain day in c -men un-roofed and re-roofed their temple 



: Mu! . name "f the PBTWrt tn 



i*ud. *' Saninites " woald be an inadvertence easy for one fanuli»r with Bonian 



ii, .n> 



