because its surface was about to be disturbed. When it was rubbed on the body all wishes were gratified; it dispelled fevers and other maladies; it was an antidote against serpents; and it conciliated hearts. A branch of the dried herb used to asperge a banquet-hall made the guests more convivial640
The ritual used in gathering these plants—silence, various tabus, ritual purity, sacrifice—is found wherever plants are culled whose virtue lies in this that they are possessed by a spirit. Other plants are still used as charms by modern Celtic peasants, and, in some cases, the ritual of gathering them resembles that described by Pliny.641 In Irish sagas plants have magical powers. "Fairy herbs" placed in a bath restored beauty to women bathing therein.642 During the Táin Cúchulainn's wounds were healed with "balsams and healing herbs of fairy potency," and Diancecht used similar herbs to restore the dead at the battle of Mag-tured.643
607. Sacaze, Inscr. des Pyren. 255; Hirschfeld, Sitzungsberichte (Berlin, 1896), 448.
608. CIL vi. 46; CIR 1654, 1683.
609. D'Arbois, Les Celtes, 52.
610. Lucan, Phar. Usener's ed., 32; Orosius, v. 16. 6; Dio Cass. lxii. 6.
611. Pliny, xvi. 44. The Scholiast on Lucan says that the Druids divined with acorns (Usener, 33).
612. Max. Tyr. Diss. viii. 8; Stokes, RC i. 259.
613. Le Braz, ii. 18.
614. Mr. Chadwick (Jour. Anth. Inst. xxx. 26) connects this high god with thunder, and regards the Celtic Zeus (Taranis, in his opinion) as a thunder-god. The oak was associated with this god because his worshippers dwelt under oaks.
615. Helbig, Die Italiker in der Poebene, 16 f.
616. Mannhardt, Baumkultus; Frazer, Golden Bough2 iii. 198.
617. Frazer, loc. cit.
618. Evans, Arch. Rev. i. 327 f.
619. Joyce, SH i. 236.
620. O'Curry, MC i. 213.
621. LL 199b; Rennes Dindsenchas, RC xv. 420.
622. RC xv. 455, xvi. 279; Hennessey, Chron. Scot. 76.
623. Keating, 556; Joyce, PN i. 499.
624. Wood-Martin, ii. 159.
625. D'Arbois, Les Celtes, 51; Jullian, 41.
626. Cook, Folk-Lore, xvii. 60.
627. See Sébillot, i. 293; Le Braz, i. 259; Folk-Lore Journal, v. 218; Folk-Lore Record, 1882.
628. Val. Probus, Comm. in Georgica, ii. 84.
629. Miss Hull, 53; O'Ourry, MS. Mat. 465. Writing tablets, made from each of the trees when they were cut down, sprang together and could not be separated.
630. Stat. Account, iii. 27; Moore, 151; Sébillot, i. 262, 270.
631. Dom Martin, i. 124; Vita S. Eligii, ii. 16.
632. Acta Sanct. (Bolland.), July 31; Sulp. Sever. Vita S. Mart. 457.
633. Grimm, Teut. Myth. 76; Maury, 13, 299. The story of beautiful women found in trees may be connected with the custom of placing images in trees, or with the belief that a goddess might be seen emerging from the tree in which she dwelt.
634. De la Tour, Atlas des Monnaies Gaul, 260, 286; Reinach, Catal. Sommaire, 29.
635. Pliny, HN xvi. 44.
636. See p. 162, supra.
637. See Cameron, Gaelic Names of Plants, 45. In Gregoire de Rostren, Dict. françois-celt. 1732, mistletoe is translated by dour-dero, "oak-water," and is said to be good for several evils.
638. Pliny, xxiv. 11.
639. Ibid.
640. Ibid. xxv. 9.
641. See Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica; De Nore, Coutumes ... des Provinces de France, 150 f.; Sauvé, RC vi. 67, CM ix. 331.
642. O'Grady, ii. 126.
643. Miss Hull, 172; see p. 77, supra.
Animal Worship
Animal
